THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS.
The idea that a radical affinity exists between Christianity and
socialism in their general aim, in their essential principles, in their
pervading spirit, has strong attractions for a certain by no means
inferior order of mind, and we find it frequently maintained in the
course of history by representatives of both systems. Some of the
principal socialists of the earlier part of this century used to declare
that socialism was only Christianity more logically carried out and more
faithfully practised; or, at any rate, that socialism would be an idle
superfluity, if ordinary Christian principles were really to be acted
upon honestly and without reserve. St. Simon published his views under
the title of the "Nouveau Christianisme," and asserted that the
prevailing forms of Christianity were one gigantic heresy; that both the
Catholic and the Protestant Churches had now lost their power, simply
because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the
poor, and because their clergy had given themselves up to barren
discussions of theology, and remained absolutely ignorant of the living
social questions of the time; and that the true Christian _regime_ which
he was to introduce was one which should be founded on the Christian
principle that all men are brothers; which should be governed by the
Christian law, "Have ye love one to another," and in which all the
forces of society should be mainly consecrated to the amelioration of
the most numerous and poorest class. Cabet was not less explicit. He
said that "if Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the
spirit of Jesus Christ, if it were rightfully understood and faithfully
obeyed by the numerous sections of Christians who are really filled with
a sincere piety, and need only to know the truth to follow it, then
Christianity would have sufficed, and would still suffice, to establish
a perfect social and political organization, and to deliver mankind from
all its ills."
The same belief, that Christianity is essentially socialistic, has at
various times appeared in the Church itself. The socialism of the only
other period in modern history besides our own century, in which
socialistic ideas have prevailed to any considerable extent, was, in
fact, a direct outcome of Christian conviction, and was realized among
Christian sects. The socialism of the Anabaptists of the Reformation
epoch was certainly mingled with political ideas of class emancipation,
and contributed to stir the insurrection of the German peasantry; but
its real origin lay in the religious fervour which was abroad at the
time, and which buoyed sanguine and mystical minds on dreams of a reign
of God. When men feel a new and better power arising strongly about
them, they are forward to throw themselves into harmony with it, and
there were people, touched by the religious revival of the Reformation,
who sought to anticipate its progress, as it were, by living together
like brothers. Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the
world with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and
belonging to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society.
It has already produced social changes of immense consequence, and has
force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many more in the future; and it
is therefore in nowise strange that in times of religious zeal or of
social distress, this idea of fraternity should appeal to some eager
natures with so urgent an authority, both of condemnation and of
promise, that they would fain take it at once by force and make it king.
The socialism of the present day is not of a religious origin. On the
contrary, there is some truth in the remark of a distinguished
economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, that the prevalence of socialistic
ideas is largely due to the decline of religious faith among the working
classes. If there is only the one life, they feel they must realize
their ideal here and realize it quickly, or they will never realize it
at all. However this may be, the fact is certain that most contemporary
socialists have turned their backs on religion. They sometimes speak of
it with a kind of suppressed and settled bitterness as of a friend that
has proved faithless: "We are not atheists: we have simply done with
God." They seem to feel that if there be a God, He is, at any rate, no
God for them, that He is the God of the rich, and cares nothing for the
poor, and there is a vein of most touching, though most illogical,
reproach in their hostility towards a Deity whom they yet declare to
have no existence. They say in their heart, There is no God, or only one
whom they decline to serve, for He is no friend to the labouring man,
and has never all these centuries done anything for him. This atheism
seems as much matter of class antipathy as of free-thought; and the
semi-political element in it lends a peculiar bitterness to the
socialistic attacks on religion and the Church, which are regarded as
main pillars of the established order of things, and irreconcileable
obstructives to all socialist dreams. The Church has, therefore, as a
rule looked upon the whole movement with a natural and justifiable
suspicion, and has, for the most part, dispensed to it an indiscriminate
condemnation. Some Churchmen, however, scruple to assume this attitude;
they recognise a soul of good in the agitation, if it could be stripped
of the revolutionary and atheistic elements of its propaganda, which
they hold to be, after all, merely accidental accompaniments of the
system, at once foreign to its essence and pernicious to its purpose. It
is in substance, they say, an economic movement, both in its origin and
its objects, and so far as it stands on this ground they have no
hesitation in declaring that in their judgment there is a great deal
more Christianity in socialism than in the existing industrial _regime_.
Those who take this view, generally find a strong bond of union with
socialists in their common revolt against the mammonism of the
church-going middle classes, and against some current economic
doctrines, which seem almost to canonize what they count the heartless
and un-Christian principles of self-interest and competition.
Such, for example, was the position maintained by the Christian
Socialists of England thirty years ago--a band of noble patriotic men
who strove hard, by word and deed, to bring all classes of the community
to a knowledge of their duties, as well as their interests, and to
supersede, as far as might be, the system of unlimited competition by a
system of universal co-operation. They inveighed against the Manchester
creed, then in the flush of success, as if it were the special
Antichrist of the nineteenth century. Lassalle himself has not used
harder, more passionate, or more unjust words of it. Maurice said he
dreaded above everything "that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester
ascendancy, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect,
morality, and freedom"; and Kingsley declared that "of all narrow,
conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the
universe, the Cobden and Bright one was exactly the worst." They agreed
entirely with the socialists in condemning the reigning industrial
system: it was founded on unrighteousness; its principles were not only
un-Christian, but anti-Christian; and in spite of its apparent
commercial victories, it would inevitably end in ruin and disaster. Some
of them had been in Paris and witnessed the Revolution of 1848, and had
brought back with them two firm convictions--one, that a purely
materialistic civilization, like that of the July Monarchy, must sooner
or later lead to a like fate; and the other, that the socialist idea of
co-operation contained the fertilizing germ for developing a really
enduring and Christian civilization. Mr. J. M. Ludlow mentioned the
matter to Maurice, and eventually a Society was formed, with Maurice as
president, for the purpose of promoting co-operation and education among
the working classes. It is beyond the scope of the present work to give
any fuller account of this interesting and not unfruitful movement here;
but it is to the purpose to mark two peculiarities which distinguish it
from other phases of socialism. One is, that they insisted strongly upon
the futility of mere external changes of condition, unattended by
corresponding changes of inner character and life. "There is no
fraternity," said Maurice, finely, "without a common Father." Just as it
is impossible to maintain free institutions among a people who want the
virtues of freemen, so it is impossible to realize fraternity in the
general arrangements of society, unless men possess a sufficient measure
of the industrial and social virtues. Hence the stress the Christian
Socialists of England laid on the education of the working classes. The
other peculiarity is, that they did not seek in any way whatever to
interfere with private property, or to invoke the assistance of the
State. They believed self-help to be a sounder principle, both morally
and politically, and they believed it to be sufficient. They held it to
be sufficient, not merely in course of time, but immediately even, to
effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in
their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so
sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they
hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly
thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered
my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great
labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but
just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to
convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did
the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest
of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the
majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and
twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when
they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their
work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists
undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of
co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the
labouring classes.
The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important
differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in
Germany at the present day--one Catholic, the other Protestant--in
dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that
country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more
fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question
the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics
is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be
Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to
suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at
reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of
having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is
otherwise with the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two
German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to
restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring
classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were
insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working
men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged
that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of
universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations
mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason
to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the
masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness
of their programme.
The Catholic group deserves to be considered first, because it
intervened in the discussion much sooner than the Evangelical, and
because it originated a much more important movement--larger in its
dimensions than the other, and invested with additional consequence from
the circumstance that being promoted under the countenance of
dignitaries, it must be presumed to have received the sanction of the
Roman Curia, and may therefore afford an index to the general attitude
which the Catholic Church is disposed to assume towards Continental
socialism. The socialist agitation had no sooner broken out, in 1863,
than Dr. Doellinger, then a pillar of the Church of Rome, strongly
recommended the Catholic clubs of Germany to take the question up. These
clubs are societies for mutual improvement, recreation, and benefit, and
are composed mainly of working men. Father Koelping, himself at the time
a working man, had, in 1847, founded an extensive organization of
Catholic journeymen, which, in 1872, had a total membership of 70,000,
and consisted of an affiliation of small journeyman clubs, with a
membership of from 50 to 400 each, in the various towns of Germany. Then
there were also Catholic apprentice clubs--in many cases in alliance
with those of the journeymen; there were Catholic master clubs, Catholic
peasant clubs, Catholic benefit clubs, Catholic young men's clubs,
Catholic credit clubs, Catholic book clubs, etc., etc. These clubs
naturally afforded an organization ready to hand for any general purpose
the members might share in common, and being composed of working men,
they seemed reasonably calculated to be of effective service in
forwarding the cause of social amelioration. Early in 1864, accordingly,
Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, warmly seconded Doellinger's idea, and at
the same time published a remarkable pamphlet on "The Labour Question
and Christianity," in which he unfolded his views of the causes and the
cure of the existing evils.
William Immanuel, Baron von Ketteler, had been for twenty years a
powerful and impressive figure in the public life of Germany. His high
rank, social and ecclesiastical, his immense energy, his weight of
character, his personal disinterestedness of purpose, and his
intellectual vigour and acuteness, had combined to give him great
importance both in Church and State. Born in 1811, of an ancient
Westphalian family, he was trained in law and politics for the public
service, and actually entered upon it, but resigned his post in 1838, in
consequence of the dispute about the Cologne bishopric, and resolved to
give himself to the work of the Church. After studying theology at
Munich and Muenster, he was ordained priest in 1844, and became soon
afterwards pastor at Hopster, in Westphalia. Being sent as member for
Langerich to the German National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he at
once made his mark by the vigour with which he strove for the spiritual
independence of the Church, by the lectures and sermons he delivered on
questions of the day, and especially by a bold and generous oration he
pronounced at the grave of the assassinated deputy, Prince Lichnowsky.
This oration excited sensation all over Germany, and Ketteler was
promoted, in 1849, to the Hedwigsburg Church, in Berlin, and in 1850 to
the Bishopric of Mayence. In this position he found scope for all his
powers. He founded a theological seminary at Mayence, erected
orphan-houses and reformatories, introduced various religious orders and
congregationist schools, and entering energetically into the disputes in
Baden regarding the place and rights of the Catholic Church, he
succeeded in establishing an understanding whereby the State gave up
much of its patronage, its supervision of theological seminaries, its
veto on ecclesiastical arrangements, restored episcopal courts, and
assigned the Church extensive influence over popular education. He was
one of the bishops who authorized the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
in 1854, but he belonged to the opposition at the Vatican Council of
1870. He wrote a pamphlet strongly deprecating the promulgation of the
dogma of infallibility, and went, even at the last moment, to the Pope
personally, and implored him to abandon the idea of promulgating it; but
as his objection respected its opportuneness and not its truth, he did
not secede with Doellinger when his opposition failed, but accepted the
dogma himself and demanded the submission of his clergy to it. Bishop
Ketteler was returned to the German Imperial Diet in 1871, and led the
Clerical Faction in opposing the ecclesiastical policy of the
Government. He died at Binghausen, in Bavaria, in 1877, and is buried in
Mayence Cathedral. Ketteler had always been penetrated with the ambition
of making the Catholic Church a factor of practical importance in the
political and social life of Germany, and with the conviction that the
clergy ought to make themselves masters of social and political science
so as to be able to exercise a leading and effective influence over
public opinion on questions of social amelioration. He has himself
written much, though nothing of permanent value, on these subjects, and
did not approach them with unwashed hands when he published his pamphlet
in 1864.
In this pamphlet, he says the labour question is one which it is his
business, both as a Christian and as a bishop, to deal with: as a
Christian, because Christ, as Saviour of the world, seeks not only to
redeem men's souls, but to heal their sorrows and soften their
condition; and as a bishop, because the Church had, according to her
ancient custom, imposed upon him, as one of his consecration vows, that
he would, "in the name of the Lord, be kind and merciful to the poor and
the stranger, and to all that are in any kind of distress." He considers
the labour question of the present day to be the very serious and plain
question, how the great bulk of the working classes are to get the bread
and clothing necessary to sustain them in life. Things have come to this
pass in consequence of two important economic changes--which he
incorrectly ascribes to the political revolution at the end of last
century, merely because they have taken place mostly since that
date--the spread of industrial freedom, and the ascendancy of the large
capitalists. In consequence of these changes the labourer is now treated
as a commodity, and the rate of his wages settled by the same law that
determines the price of every other commodity--the cost of its
production; and the employer is always able to press wages down to the
least figure which the labourer will take rather than starve. Ketteler
accepts entirely Lassalle's teaching about "the iron and cruel law," and
holds it to have been so conclusively proved in the course of the
controversy that it is no longer possible to dispute it without a
deliberate intention of deceiving the people. Now there is no doubt that
Ricardo's law of value is neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle took
it to be; and that when Lassalle alleged that in consequence of this law
96 per cent. of the population of Germany had to support their families
on less than ten shillings a week, and were therefore in a state of
chronic starvation, he based his statement on a calculation of
Dieterici's, which was purely conjectural, and which, besides,
disregarded the fact that in working-class families there were usually
more breadwinners than one. Ketteler, however, adopts this whole
statement of the case implicitly, and says the social problem of our day
is simply how to emancipate the labouring class from the operation of
this economic law. "It is no longer possible to doubt that the whole
material existence of almost the entire labouring population--_i.e._, of
much the greatest part of men in modern states, and of their
families--that the daily question about the necessary bread for man,
wife, and children, is exposed to all the fluctuations of the market and
of the price of commodities. I know nothing more deplorable than this
fact. What sensations must it cause in those poor men who, with all they
hold dear, are day after day at the mercy of the accidents of market
price? That is the slave market of our Liberal Europe, fashioned after
the model of our humanist, rationalistic, anti-Christian Liberalism, and
freemasonry." The bishop never spares an opportunity of attacking
"heathen humanist Liberalism," which he says has pushed the labouring
man into the water, and now stands on the bank spinning fine theories
about his freedom, but calmly seeing him drown.
After this it might be expected that Ketteler would be all for
abolishing industrial freedom, and for restoring a _regime_ of
compulsory guilds and corporations; but he is not. He acknowledges that
the old system of guilds had its advantages; it was a kind of assured
understanding between the workman and society, according to which the
former adjusted his work and the latter his wages. But it was the abuses
of the compulsory powers of the guilds that led to industrial freedom;
and, on the other hand, industrial freedom has great countervailing
advantages of its own which he scruples to give up. It has immensely
increased production and cheapened commodities, and so enabled the lower
classes to enjoy means of life and enjoyment they had not before. Nor
does Ketteler approve of Lassalle's scheme of establishing productive
associations of working men upon capital supplied by the State. Not that
he objects to productive associations; on the contrary, he declares them
to be a glorious idea, and thinks them the true solution of the problem.
But he objects to supplying their capital by the State, as involving a
direct violation of the law of property. The Catholic Church, he says,
has never maintained an absolute right of property. Her divines have
unanimously taught that the right of property cannot avail against a
neighbour who is in extreme need, because God alone is absolute
proprietor, and no man is more than a limited vassal, holding under God,
and on the conditions which He imposes; and one of these conditions is
that any man in extremities is entitled to satisfy his necessity where
and how he pleases.[1] In such a case, according to Catholic doctrine,
it is not the man in distress that is the thief, but the proprietor who
would gainsay and stop him. The distressed have a positive right to
succour, and the State may therefore, without violating any of the
rights of property, tax the parishes, or the proprietors, for the relief
of the poor. But beyond this the State has no title to go. It may
legitimately tax people for the purpose of saving working men from
extremities, but not for the purpose of bettering their normal position.
But where the civil authority ends the Christian authority comes in, and
the rich have only escaped the obligation of compulsory legal enactment,
to find themselves under the more far-reaching obligations of moral duty
and Christian love. The Church declares that the man who does not give
alms where he ought to give it stands in the same category as a thief;
and there is no limit to this obligation but his power of giving help,
and his belief that it would be more hurtful to give than to keep it.
Ketteler's plan, accordingly, is that the capital for the productive
associations should be raised by voluntary subscriptions on the part of
Christian people. He thinks he has made out a strong case for
establishing this as a Christian obligation. He has shown that a
perilous crisis prevails, that this crisis can only be removed by
productive associations, that productive associations cannot be started
without capital, and he says it is a vain dream of Huber's to think of
getting the capital from the savings of working men themselves, for most
of the working men are in a distressed condition, and if a few are
better off, their savings could only establish associations so few in
number and so small in scale, as to be little better than trifling with
the evil. He sees no remedy but making productive associations a scheme
of the Church, and appealing to that Christian philanthropy and sense of
duty which had already done great service of a like nature--as, for
example, in producing capital to emancipate slaves in Italy and
elsewhere.
This remarkable proposal of the bishop seems to have fallen dead. Though
he wrote and laboured much in connection with the labour question
afterwards, he never reverted to it again; and when a Christian
Socialist party was formed, under his countenance, they adopted a
programme which made large demands not only on the intervention, but on
the pecuniary help of the State. It was not till 1868 that any steps
were taken towards the actual organization of such a party. In June of
that year three Catholic clubs met together at Crefeld, and, after
discussing the social question, agreed to publish a journal (the
_Christliche Sociale Blaetter_) to promote their views. In September of
the following year the whole subject of the relations of the Church to
the labour question was discussed at a conference of the Catholic
bishops of Germany, held at Fulda, and attended by Ketteler among
others. This conference strongly recommended the clergy to make
themselves thoroughly acquainted with that and other economic questions,
to interest themselves generally in the condition of the working class
they moved among, and even to travel in foreign countries to see the
state of the labourers there and the effects of the institutions
established for their amelioration. The conference also approved of the
formation of Catholic Labourers' Associations, for the promotion of the
general elevation of their own class, but held that the Church had no
call, directly or officially, to take the initiative in founding them.
This duty was undertaken, however, later in the same month, by a general
meeting of the Catholic Clubs of Germany, which appointed a special
committee, including Professor Schulte and Baron Schorlemer-Abst, for
the express purpose of founding and organizing Christian social clubs,
which should strive for the economic and moral amelioration of the
labouring classes. This committee set itself immediately to work, and
the result was the Christian Social Associations, or, as they are
sometimes called from their patron saint, the St. Joseph Associations.
They were composed of, and managed by, working men, though they liked to
have some man of eminence--never a clergyman--at the head of them, and
though they allowed persons, of property, clergymen, and especially
employers of labour, to be honorary members. They met every Sunday
evening to discuss social questions, and politics were excluded, except
questions affecting the Church, and on these a decided partisanship was
encouraged.
The principles of this party--or what may be called their programme--is
explained in a speech delivered by Canon Moufang to his constituents in
Mayence, in February, 1871, and published with warm approbation, in the
_Christliche Sociale Blaetter_ in March. Christoph Moufang is, like
Ketteler, a leader of the German Clerical party, and entitled to the
highest esteem for his character, his intellectual parts, and his public
career. Born in 1817, he was first destined for the medical profession,
and studied physic at Bonn; but he soon abandoned this intention, and
betook himself to theology. After studying at Bonn and Munich, he was
ordained priest in 1839. He was appointed in 1851 professor of moral and
pastoral theology in the new theological seminary which Bishop Ketteler
had founded at Mayence, and in 1854 was made canon of the cathedral.
Moufang entered the First Hessian Chamber in 1862 as representative of
the bishop, and made a name as a powerful champion of High Church views
and of the general ecclesiastical policy of Bishop Ketteler. In 1868 he
was chosen one of the committee to make preparations for the Vatican
Council; but at the Council he belonged to the opponents of the dogma of
infallibility, and left Rome before the dogma was promulgated. He
submitted afterwards, however, and worked sedulously in its sense.
Moufang sat in the Imperial Diet from 1871 to 1877, was a leading member
of the Centre, and stoutly resisted the Falk legislation. He is
joint-editor of the _Katholik_, and is author of various polemical
writings, and of a work on the history of the Jesuits in Germany.
Moufang takes a different view of the present duty of the Church in
relation to the social question from that which we saw to have been
taken by Ketteler. He asks for no pecuniary help from the Church, nor
for any special and novel kind of activity whatever. The problem cannot,
in his opinion, be effectively and permanently solved without her
co-operation, but then the whole service she is able and required to
render is contained in the course of her ordinary ministrations in
diffusing a spirit of love and justice and fairness among the various
classes of society, in maintaining her charities for the poor and
helpless in dispensing comfort and distress, and in offering to the
weary the hope of a future life. Moufang makes much more demand on the
State than on the Church, in this also disagreeing with Bishop
Ketteler's pamphlet. He says the State can and must help the poorer
classes in four different ways:--
1st. By giving legislative protection. Just as the landlord and the
money-lender are legally protected in their rights by the State, so the
labourer ought to be legally protected in his property, which are his
powers and time of labour. The State ought to give him legal security
against being robbed of these, his only property, by the operation of
free competition. With this view, Moufang demands the legalization of
working men's associations of various kinds, the prohibition of Sunday
labour, the legal fixing of a normal day of labour, legal restriction of
labour of women and children, legal provision against unwholesome
workshops, appointment of factory inspectors, and direct legal fixing of
the rate of wages. The last point is an important peculiarity in the
position of the Catholic Socialists. Moufang contends that competition
is a sound enough principle for regulating the price of commodities, but
that it is a very unsound one, and a very unsafe one, for determining
the price of labour, because he holds that labour is not a commodity.
Labour is a man's powers of life; it is the man himself, and the law
must see to its protection. The law protects the capitalist in his right
to his interest, and surely the labouring man's powers of life are
entitled to the same consideration. If an employer says to a capitalist
from whom he has borrowed money: "A crisis has come, a depression in
trade, and I am no longer able to pay such high interest; I will pay you
two-thirds or one-third of the previous rate," what does the capitalist
say? He refuses to take it, and why? Simply because he knows that the
law will sustain him in his claim. But if the employer says to his
labourer: "A depression of trade has come, and I cannot afford you more
than two-thirds or one-third of your present wages," what can the
labourer do? He has no alternative. He must take the wages offered him
or go, and to go means to starve. Why should not the law stand at the
labourer's back, as it does at the capitalist's, in enforcing what is
right and just? There is no more infraction of freedom in the one case
than in the other. Moufang's argument here is based on an illusive
analogy; for in the contract for the use of capital the employer agrees
to pay a fixed rate of interest so long as he retains the principal, and
he can only avail himself of subsequent falls in the money market by
returning the principal and opening a fresh contract; whereas in the
contract for the use of labour the employer engages by the week or the
day, returning the principal, as it were, at the end of that term, and
making a new arrangement. The point to be noted, however, is that
Moufang's object, like Ketteler's, is to deliver working men from their
hand-to-mouth dependence on the current fluctuations of the market; that
he thinks there is something not merely pernicious but radically unjust
in their treatment under the present system; and that he calls upon the
State to institute some regular machinery--a board with compulsory
powers, and composed of labourers and magistrates--for fixing everywhere
and in every trade a fair day's wages for a fair day's work.
2nd. The State ought to give pecuniary help. It advances money on easy
terms to railway schemes; why should it not offer working men cheap
loans for sound co-operative enterprises? Of course it ought to make a
keen preliminary examination of the projects proposed, and keep a sharp
look-out against swindling or ill-considered schemes; but if the project
is sound and likely, it should be ready to lend the requisite capital at
a low interest. This proposal of starting productive associations on
State credit is an important divergence from Ketteler, who, in his
pamphlet, condemns it as a violation of the rights of property.
3rd. The State ought to reduce the taxes and military burdens of the
labouring classes.
4th. The State ought to fetter the domination of the money power, and
especially to check excesses of speculation, and control the operations
of the Stock Exchange.
From this programme it appears that the Catholic movement goes a long
way with the socialists in their cries of wrong, but only a short way in
their plans of redress. Moufang's proposals may be wise or unwise, but
they contemplate only corrections of the present industrial system, and
not its reconstruction. Many Liberals are disposed to favour the idea of
establishing courts of conciliation with compulsory powers, and Bismarck
himself once said, before the socialists showed themselves unpatriotic
at the time of the French war, that he saw no reason why the State,
which gave large sums for agricultural experiments, should not spend
something in giving co-operative production a fair trial. The plans of
labour courts and of State credit to approved co-operative undertakings
are far from the socialist schemes of the abolition of private property
in the instruments of production, and the systematic regulation of all
industry by the State; and they afford no fair ground for the fear,
which many persons of ability entertain, of "an alliance"--to use
Bismarck's phrase--"between the black International and the red." Bishop
Martensen holds Catholicism to be essentially socialistic, because it
suppresses all individual rights and freedom in the intellectual sphere,
as socialism does in the economic. But men may detest private judgment
without taking the least offence at private property. A bigot need not
be a socialist, any more than a socialist a bigot, though each stifles
the principle of individuality in one department of things. If there is
to be any alliance between the Church and socialism, it will be not
because the former has been trained, under an iron organization, to
cherish a horror of individuality and a passion for an economic
organization as rigid as its own ecclesiastical one, but it will be
because the Church happens to have a distinct political interest at the
time in cultivating good relations with a new political force. How far
Moufang and his associates have been influenced by this kind of
consideration we cannot pretend to judge, but the sympathy they show is
not so much with the socialists as with the labouring classes generally,
and their movement is meant so far to take the wind from socialism,
whether with the mere view of filling their own sails with it or no.
No voice was raised in the Protestant Churches in Germany on the social
question till 1878. They suffer from their absolute dependence on the
State, and have become churches of doctors and professors, without
effective practical interest or initiative, and without that strong
popular sympathy of a certain kind which almost necessarily pervades the
atmosphere of a Church like the Catholic, which pits itself against
States, and knows that its power of doing so rests, in the last
analysis, on its hold over the hearts of the people. The Home Missionary
Society indeed discussed the question from time to time, but chiefly in
connection with the effects of the socialist propaganda on the religious
condition of the country; and it was this aspect of the subject that
eventually stirred a section of the orthodox Evangelical clergy to take
practical action. They asked themselves how it was that the working
classes were so largely adopting the desolate atheistic opinions which
were found associated with the socialist movement, when the Church
offered to gather them under her wing, and brighten their life with the
comforts and encouragements of Christian faith and hope. They felt
strongly that they must take more interest in the temporal welfare of
the working classes than they had hitherto done, and must apply the
ethical and social principles of Christianity to the solution of
economic problems and the promotion of social reform. In short, they
sought to present Christianity as the labourer's friend. The leaders of
this movement were men of much inferior calibre to those of the
corresponding Catholic movement. The principal of them were Rudolph
Todt, a pastor at Barentheim in Old Preignitz, who published in 1878 a
book on "Radical German Socialism and Christian Society," which created
considerable sensation; and Dr. Stoecker, then one of the Court preachers
at Berlin, a member of the Prussian Diet, and an ardent promoter of
reactionary policy in various directions. He is a warm advocate of
denominational education, and of extending the power of the Crown, of
the State, and of the landed class; and he was a prime mover in the
Jew-baiting movement which excited Germany a few years ago. This
antipathy to the Jews has been for many years a cardinal tendency of the
"Agrarians," a small political group mainly of nobles and great landed
proprietors, with whom Stoecker frequently allies himself, and who
profess to treat all political questions from a strictly Christian
standpoint, but work almost exclusively to assert the interests of the
landowners against the growing ascendancy of the commercial and
financial classes, among whom Jews occupy an eminent place. We mention
this anti-Jewish agitation here to point out that, while no doubt fed by
other passions also, one of its chief ingredients is that same
antagonism to the _bourgeoisie_--compounded of envy of their success,
contempt for their money-seeking spirit, and anger at their supposed
expropriation of the rest of society--which animates all forms of
continental socialism, and has already proved a very dangerous political
force in the French Revolution of 1848.
Todt's work is designed to set forth the social principles and mission
of Christianity on the basis of a critical investigation of the New
Testament, which he believes to be an authoritative guide on economic as
well as moral and dogmatic questions. He says that to solve the social
problem, we must take political economy in the one hand, the scientific
literature of socialism in the other, and keep the New Testament before
us. As the result of his examination, he condemns the existing
industrial _regime_ as being decidedly unchristian, and declares the
general principles of socialism, and even its main concrete proposals,
to be directly prescribed and countenanced by Holy Writ. Like all who
assume the name of socialist, he cherishes a marked repugnance to the
economic doctrines of modern Liberalism, the leaven of the
_bourgeoisie_; and much of his work is devoted to show the inner
affinity of Christianity and socialism, and the inner antagonism between
Christianity and Manchesterdom. He goes so far as to say that every
active Christian who makes conscience of his faith has a socialistic
vein in him, and that every socialist, however hostile he may be to the
Christian religion, has an unconscious Christianity in his heart;
whereas, on the other hand, the merely nominal Christian, who has never
really got out of his natural state, is always a spiritual Manchestrist,
worshipping _laissez faire, laissez aller_, with his whole soul, and
that a Manchestrist is never in reality a true and sound Christian,
however much he may usurp the name. Christianity and socialism are
engaged in a common work, trying to make the reality of things
correspond better with an ideal state; and in doing their work they rely
on the same ethical principle, the love of our neighbour, and they
repudiate the Manchester idolatry of self-interest. The socialist ideas
of liberty, equality, and fraternity are part and parcel of the
Christian system; and the socialist ideas of solidarity of interests, of
co-operative production, and of democracy have all a direct Biblical
foundation, in the constitution and customs of the Church, and in the
apostolic teaching regarding it.
Radical socialism, according to Todt, consists of three elements: first,
in economics, communism; second, in politics, republicanism; third, in
religion, atheism. Under the last head, of course, there is no analogy,
but direct contradiction, between Socialism and Christianity; but Todt
deplores the atheism that prevails among the socialists as not merely an
error, but a fatal inconsistency. If socialism would but base its
demands on the Gospel, he says, it would be resistless, and all
labourers would flow to it; but atheistic socialism can never fulfil its
own promises, and issues a draft which Christianity alone has the power
to meet. It is hopeless to think of founding an enduring democratic
State on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, unless
these principles are always sustained and reinvigorated by the Divine
fraternal love that flows from faith in Jesus Christ.
As to the second principle of socialism, Todt says, that while Holy
Scripture contains no direct prescription on the point, it may be
inferentially established that a republic is the form of government that
is most harmonious with the Christian ideal. His deduction of this is
peculiar. The Divine government of the world, he owns, is monarchical,
but then it is a government which cannot be copied by sinful men, and
therefore cannot have been meant as a pattern for them. But God, he
says, has established His Church on earth as a visible type of His own
invisible providential government, and the Church is a "republic under
an eternal President, sitting by free choice of the people, Jesus
Christ." This is both fanciful and false, for Christ is an absolute
ruler, and no mere minister of the popular will; and there is not the
remotest ground for founding a system of Biblical politics on the
constitution of the Church. But it shows the length Todt is disposed to
go to conciliate the favour of the socialists.
But the most important element of socialism is its third or economic
principle--communism; and this he represents to be entirely in harmony
with the economic ideal of the New Testament. He describes the
communistic idea as consisting of two parts: first, the general
principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which he finds directly
involved in the Scriptural doctrines of moral responsibility, of men's
common origin and redemption, and of the law of love; and second, the
transformation of all private property in the instruments of production
into common property, which includes three points: (_a_) the abolition
of the present wages system; (_b_) giving the labourer the full product
of his labour; and (_c_) associated labour. As to the first two of these
points, Todt pronounces the present wages system to be thoroughly
unjust, because it robs the labourer of the full product of his labour;
and because unjust, it is unchristian. He accepts the ordinary socialist
teaching about "the iron and cruel law." He accepts, too, Marx's theory
of value, and declares it to be unanswerable; and he therefore finds no
difficulty in saying that Christianity condemns a system which in his
opinion grinds the faces of the labouring classes with incessant toil,
filches from them the just reward of their work, and leaves them to
hover hopelessly on the margin of destitution. If there is any scheme
that promises effectually to cure this condition of things, Christianity
will also approve of that scheme; and such a scheme he discovers in the
socialist proposal of collective property and associated labour. This
proposal, however, derives direct countenance, he maintains, from the
New Testament. It is supported by the texts which describe the Church as
an organism under the figure of a body with many members, by the example
of the common bag of the twelve, and by the communism of the primitive
Church of Jerusalem. But the texts about the Church as an organism have
no real bearing on the subject at all; for the Church is not meant to be
an authoritative pattern either for political or for economic
organization; and besides, the figure of the body and its members would
apply better to Bastiat's theory of the natural harmony of interests
than to the socialist idea of the solidarity of interests. Then the
common bag of the disciples did not prevent them from having boats and
other instruments of production of their own individual property; and we
know that the communism of the primitive Church of Jerusalem (which was
a decided economic failure, for the poverty of that Church had to be
repeatedly relieved by collections in other parts of Christendom) was
not a community of property, but, what is a higher thing, a community of
use, and that it was not compulsory but spontaneous.
Todt, however, after seeming thus to commit himself and Christianity
without reserve to socialism, suddenly shrinks from his own boldness,
and draws back. Collective property may be countenanced by Scripture,
but he finds private property to be as much or even more so; and he
cannot on any consideration consent to the abolition of private property
by force. It was right enough to abolish slavery by force, for slavery
is an unchristian institution. But though private property is certainly
founded on selfishness, there are so many examples of it presented
before us in the New Testament without condemnation, that Todt shrinks
from pronouncing it to be an unchristian institution. Collective
property may be better, but private property will never disappear till
selfishness is swallowed up of love; and a triumph of socialism at
present, while its disciples are unbelievers and have not Christ, the
fount of love, in their hearts, would involve society in much more
serious evils than those which it seeks to remove. Todt's socialism,
therefore, is not a thing of the present, but an ideal of the distant
future, to be realized after Christian proprietors have come of their
own accord to give up their estates, and socialists have all been
converted to Christianity. For the present, in spite of his stern view
of the great wrong and injustice the working classes suffer, Todt has no
remedy to suggest, except that things would be better if proprietors
learnt more to regard their wealth as a trust of which they were only
stewards, and if employers treated their workmen with the personal
consideration due to Christian brothers; and he thinks the cultivation
of this spirit ought to be more expressly aimed at in the work of the
Church. This is probably, after all, the sum of what Christianity has to
say on the subject; but it seems a poor result of so much figuring and
flourishing, to end in a general truth which can give no offence even in
Manchester.
Soon after the publication of Todt's book, Stoecker and some Evangelical
friends founded two associations, for the purpose of dealing with the
social question from a Christian point of view, and established a
newspaper, the _Staats-Socialist_, to advocate their opinions. Of the
two associations, one, the Central Union for Social Reform, was composed
of persons belonging to the educated classes--professors, manufacturers,
landowners, and clergymen; and the other, the Christian Social Working
Men's Party, consisted of working men alone. This movement was received
on all sides with unqualified disapprobation. The press, Liberal and
Conservative alike, spoke with contemptuous dislike of this
_Mucker-Socialismus_, and said they preferred the socialists in blouse
to the socialists in surplice. The Social Democrats rose against it with
virulence, and held meetings, both of men and of women, at which they
glorified atheism and bitterly attacked the clergy and religion. Even
the higher dignitaries of the Church held coldly aloof or were even
openly hostile. Stoecker met all this opposition with unflinching spirit,
convened public meetings in Berlin to promote his cause, and confronted
the socialist leaders on the platform. The movement gave promise of fair
success. In a few months seven hundred pastors, besides many from other
professions, including Dr. Koegel, Court preacher, and Dr. Buchsel, a
German Superintendent, had enrolled themselves in the Central Union for
Social Reform; and the Christian Social Working Men's Party had
seventeen hundred members in Berlin, and a considerable number
throughout the provinces. But its progress was interrupted by the
Anti-Socialist Law, passed soon after the same year, which put an end to
meetings of socialists; and since this measure was supported, though
hesitatingly, by Stoecker and his leading allies, that impaired their
influence with the labouring classes.
The principles of this party, as stated in their programme, may be said
generally to be that a decided social question exists, in the
increasing gulf between rich and poor, and the increasing want of
economic security in the labourer's life; that this question cannot
possibly be solved by social democracy, because social democracy is
unpractical, unchristian, and unpatriotic; and that it can only be
solved by means of an extensive intervention on the part of a strong and
monarchical State, aided by the religious factors in the national life.
The State ought to provide by statute a regular organization of the
working classes according to their trades, authorizing the trades unions
to represent the labourers as against their employers, rendering these
unions legally liable for the contracts entered into by their members,
assuming a control of their funds, regulating the apprentice system,
creating compulsory insurance funds, etc. Then it ought to protect the
labourers by prohibiting Sunday labour, by fixing a normal day of
labour, and by insisting on the sound sanitary condition of workshops.
Further, it ought to manage the State and communal property in a spirit
favourable to the working class, and to introduce high luxury taxes, a
progressive income-tax, and a progressive legacy duty, both according to
extent of bequest and distance of relationship. These very comprehensive
reforms are, however, held to be inadequate without the spread of a
Christian spirit of mutual consideration into the relations of master
and workman, and of Christian faith, hope, and love into family life.
Moreover they are not to be expected from a parliamentary government in
which the commercial classes have excessive influence, and hence the
Christian Socialists lay great stress on the monarchical element, and
would give the monarch absolute power to introduce social reforms
without parliamentary co-operation and even in face of parliamentary
opposition. We have seen that Todt was disposed to favour a republican
form of government, but probably, like the Czar Nicholas, he has no
positive objection to any other save the constitutional. His party has
certainly adopted a very Radical social programme, but it is above all a
Conservative group, seeking to resist the revolutionary and
materialistic tendencies of socialism, and to rally the great German
working class once more round the standard of God, King, and Fatherland.
Dr. Stoecker has during the past year resuscitated his Christian
Socialist organization under the name of the Social Monarchical Union,
but without any prospect of much success; for its founder, as the result
of his twelve years' bustling in the troubled waters of politics, has
fallen out of favour alike with court, Church, and people. He has lost
his place as royal chaplain, he is bitterly distrusted by the working
classes, and his socialist opinions are a great rock of offence to his
ecclesiastical brethren. A congress under Church auspices was held at
Berlin on May 28th and 29th, 1890, and it was called the Evangelical
Social Congress, as was explained by Professor A. Wagner, the economist,
in his inaugural speech, to avoid being connected with the Christian
Socialists. Dr. Stoecker read a paper at it on social democracy, which
raised a storm of dissension, mainly for its attack upon the Jews. This
congress, it may be noted, asked nothing from Government but a little
attention to the housing of the poor, and its chief recommendations were
(1) that every parish be organized under the social-political as well as
spiritual supervision of the clergy; (2) that Evangelical Working Men's
Unions be established in all industrial centres; (3) that benevolent or
friendly societies be organized for all trades, such as exist now in
mining; (4) that since social democracy threatened the Divine and human
order of society, and could only be successfully opposed by the power of
the gospel, a responsible mission lay upon the Church to combat and
counteract it. This mission was to be accomplished in two ways: first,
by awakening in all Evangelical circles the conviction that the present
social crisis was due to a universal national guilt, the guilt of
materialistic learning and living; and, second, by awakening masters to
a sense of their duty to their men, as morally their equals, and by
awakening the men to a sense of the moral vocation of the masters. In
other words, the social mission of the Church, according to the dominant
opinion at this congress, was just to do its ordinary work of preaching
repentance, faith, and love, and was much better represented by Dr.
Stoecker's Home Missionary Society than by his Social Monarchical Union.
On this question of the duty of the Church with regard to the social
amelioration of the people, there are everywhere two opposite
tendencies of opinion. One says there is no specific Christian social
politics, and that the Church can never have a specific social-political
programme. Slavery is undoubtedly inconsistent with the moral spirit of
the gospel, but St. Paul was not an emancipationist in practical life.
He neither raises the question of emancipation as a matter of political
agitation, nor does he bid, or beg, his friend Philemon to set Onesimus
at liberty, but to receive him as a brother beloved; just as any of St.
Paul's successors might enjoin a Christian master to treat his Christian
servant. Christianity is an inspiration, and may be expected to change
the character of social relations as it changes the character of men;
but political programmes are always things of opportunity and temporary
compromise, and it would be very unadvisable to run at any moment a
Christian political party, because it would necessarily make
Christianity responsible for imperfections incident to party politics,
and lessen rather than help the weight of its testimony in the world.
Then, on the other hand, there are those who hold that there is a
specific Christian social politics; that there is a distinct social and
political system, either directly enjoined by Holy Writ, or
inferentially resulting from it, so as to be truly a system of Divine
right. That is the claim put forward by Dr. Stoecker for his system of
social monarchy, and it is the position of sundry other groups of
socialists, who base their policy on the agrarian ordinances of Moses,
or the communism of the primitive Churches, or the general spirit of the
teaching of Jesus Christ. But Christian Socialism, in any of these
forms, is evidently at a discount in the Evangelical Church in Germany;
and the representative men in that Church, whatever they may do as
private citizens, would seem to refrain, perhaps too jealously, from
formulating in the name of religion any demands for the action of the
State in the social question.
Indeed, among Protestants, what is called Christian Socialism is little
more than a vagrant opinion in any country; but among Catholics it has
grown into a considerable international movement, and has in several
States--especially in Austria--left its mark on legislation. The
movement was started in Austria by a Protestant, Herr Rudolph Meyer, the
well-known author of the "Emancipationskampf des Arbeit" and other
works; but he was influentially and effectively seconded by Prince von
Liechtenstein, Counts Blome and Kuefstein, and Herr von Vogelsang, who
is now editor of the special organ of the movement, the _Vaterland_, of
Vienna. In France there had long been a school of Catholic social
reformers, the disciples of the Economist Le Play, and they are still
associated in the Society of Social Peace, and advocate their views in
the periodical _La Reforme Sociale_. They are believers in liberty,
however, and would not be called socialists. But there are now two newer
schools of Catholic social reformers, who declare their aim to be the
re-establishment of Christian principles in the world of labour, but are
divided on the point of State intervention.
The school who believe in State intervention are the more numerous; they
are led by Count Albert de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour de Pin
Chambly, have a separate organ, _L'Association Catholique_, and are
supported by a large organization of Catholic workmen's clubs, founded
by Count de Mun. There were 450 of these clubs in 1880, and they combine
the functions of a religious club, a co-operative store, and a friendly
society. The school who uphold the principle of liberty also publish an
organ, _L'Union Economique_, edited by the Franciscan Father le Basse,
and their best known leaders are two Jesuit priests, Fathers Forbes and
Caudron. There is likewise a Catholic Socialist movement in Switzerland
and Belgium, in both cases strongly in favour of State intervention;
and, indeed, Italy is the only Catholic country in which the Church
holds aloof from the social movement, forgetting the unusual miseries of
the people in an ignoble sulk over the loss of the Pope's temporal
power.
The friends of this movement have now held three international
congresses at Liege. The third was held in September, 1890, under the
presidency of the bishop of the diocese, and was attended by 1500
delegates, including eight or ten bishops and many Catholic statesmen
and peers from all countries. Lord Ashburnham and the Bishops of Salford
and Nottingham represented England, and there were representatives from
Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, and France, but none from Italy. The
Pope himself sent a special envoy with an address, and among letters
from eminent Catholic leaders who were unable to be present in person
was one from Cardinal Manning, which made a little sensation, but was
received with decided sympathy, though the Pope afterwards disavowed it
to some extent. The Cardinal expressed strong approval of trade unions,
and of State intervention to fix the hours of labour to eight hours for
miners and ten hours for less arduous trades, and he declared his
conviction that no pacific solution of the conflict between capital and
labour was possible till the State regulated profits and wages according
to some fixed scale which should be subject to revision every three or
four years, and by which all free contracts between employers and
employed should be adjusted.
The Congress went over the whole gamut of social questions, and
exhibited the usual conflict of opinion between the party of liberty and
the party of authority; but the party of authority, the "Statolaters" as
they are called, had evidently the great majority of the assembly. The
party of liberty were chiefly Frenchmen and Belgians, men like Fathers
Forbes and Caudron, already mentioned, or M. Woeste, the leader of the
Catholic party in Belgium, who said he believed in moral suasion only,
and that he feared the State and hated Caesarism. The party of authority
were German and English. But whatever they thought of State
intervention, all parties were one about the necessity of Church
intervention. Without the Catholic Church there could be no solution of
the social question. Cardinal Manning said, a few days before the
Congress, that the labour question now raised everywhere must go on till
it was solved somehow, and that the only universal influence that could
guide it was the presence and prudence of the Catholic Church. The
Congress passed recommendations about technical education, better homes
for working people, shorter hours, intemperance, strikes, prison labour,
international factory legislation. It proposed the institution of trade
unions, comprising both employers and employed, as the best means of
promoting working-class improvement. In the towns these unions might
have distinct sections for the different trades; but in the country this
subdivision was not requisite. Every parish should have its trade
union, and the whole should be united in a federation, like the
Boerenbond, or Peasants' League, lately established in some parts of
Belgium, and which the Congress recommended to the attention of
Catholics. It recommended also the establishment of a pension fund for
aged labourers under State guarantee, but without any compulsory
exaction of premiums, and without any special State subsidy; and it
received with favour a proposal by the Spanish divine, Professor
Rodriguez de Cegrada, of Valencia, for papal arbitration in
international labour questions.
This Catholic Socialist movement shows no disposition to coquet with
revolutionary socialism; on the contrary, its leaders often say one of
their express objects is to counteract that agitation--to produce the
counter-revolution, as they sometimes put it. They are under no mistake
about the nature or bearing of socialist doctrines. Our Christian
Socialists in London accept the doctrines of Marx, and hold the
labourer's right to the full product of his labour to be a requirement
of Christian ethics, and the orators at English Church Congresses often
speak of socialism as if it were a higher perfection of Christianity.
But Catholic Socialists understand their Christianity and their
socialism better than to make any such identifications, and regard the
doctrines and organizations of revolutionary socialism in the spirit of
the firm judgment expressed in the Pope's encyclical of 28th December,
1878, which said that "so great is the difference between their (the
socialists') wicked dogmas and the pure doctrine of Christ that there
can be no greater; for what participation has justice with injustice, or
what communion has light with darkness?" This plain, gruff renunciation
is on the whole much truer than the amiable patronage of a very
distinguished Irish bishop at the Church Congress of 1887, who said
socialism was only a product of Christian countries, (what of the
socialism of savage tribes, or of the Mahdi, or of the Chinese?) that
the sentiment and aspiration of socialism were distinctly Christian, and
that every Christian is a bit of a socialist, and every socialist a bit
of a Christian. Socialism may proceed from an aspiration after social
justice, but a mistaken view of social justice is, I presume, really
injustice; and, as the Pope says, what communion can there practically
be between justice and injustice? Idolatry is a mistaken view of Divine
things--a distortion of the religious sentiment; but who would on that
account call it Christian? The socialist may be at heart a lover of
justice; he may love it, if you will, above his fellows; but what
matters the presence of the sentiment if the system he would realize it
by is ruled essentially by a principle of injustice? Justice, the
greatest and rarest of the virtues, is also the most difficult and the
most easily perverted. It needs a balance of mind, and in its
application to complicated and wide-reaching social arrangements, an
exactitude of knowledge and clearness of understanding which are ill
replaced by sentimentalism, or even by honest feeling; and the fault of
the current talk about Christian Socialism and the identity of socialism
with Christianity is that it does not conduce to this clearness of
understanding, which is the first requisite for any useful dealing with
such questions. If socialism is just, it is Christian--that seems the
sum of the matter. But do socializing bishops believe it to be just? Do
they believe, as all socialists believe, that it is unjust for one man
to be paid five thousand pounds a year, while his neighbours, with far
harder and more drudging work, cannot make forty pounds? or do they
believe it wrong for a man to live on interest, or rents, or profits? or
would they have the law lay its hands on property and manufactures, in
order to correct this wrong and give every man the income to which he
would be entitled on socialist principles? It is good, no doubt, to have
more equality and simplicity and security of living; but these
aspirations are neither peculiar to Christianity nor to socialism.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The bishop draws this conclusion from the principle that God has
directed all men to nature to obtain from it the satisfaction of their
necessary wants, and that this original right of the needy cannot be
superseded by the subsequent institution of private property. No doubt,
he admits, that institution is also of God. It is the appointed way by
which man's dominion over nature is to be realized, because it is the
way in which nature is best utilized for the higher civilization of man.
But this purpose is secondary and subordinate to the other. And,
therefore, concludes the bishop, "firmly as theology upholds the right
of private property, it asserts at the same time that the higher right
by which all men are directed to nature's supplies dare not be
infringed, and that, consequently, any one who finds himself in extreme
need is justified, when other means fail, in satisfying this extreme
need where and how he may (wo und wie er es vermag)."--_Die
Arbeiter-frage und das Christenthum_ (p. 78).