the public weal. Private and collective property coexist side by side, both equally sacred in the eyes of the law. Competition between the societary and capitalistic forms of industry will exercise a most salutary influence in purifying these forms of many of their abuses, and in removing the last remnants of injustice which cleave to them, and thus contributing towards the attainment of the great object of every branch of social science, the highest material and mental improvement of the individual and the race.

Whether this progress has been more or less impeded by the recent attitude of the labouring classes themselves, and whether or not we are entitled, from what we know of their tendency to materialistic views, to entertain very sanguine hopes as to the ultimate realization of the prospects just delineated, is a question not easily answered. At all events for the present, in order to the reconciling of the antagonism between capital and labour, a transition from our existing modes of carrying on industry to the co-operative system is not so much a pressing necessity as the organization of the labour market and the adjustment of wages, which forms the subject of fierce controversy between employers and employed at the present day.

The discussion of this subject, and that of social reform, we reserve for the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

Social Politics.-The Influences of Civilization and Religion.Church and State. The Social Duty of the Clergy.-Functions of the State in general.-Utopias only reject all State Help.-Special Cases requiring State Help in the Solution of the Social Question.-Right of Combination among the Labourers.-Courts of Conciliation.-Wages in Connection with the Equilibrium of Population.-Legal Reforms regarding the Family Rights of Women and Children.-Reform of the Poor Laws.-Reduction of the National Burdens, and remarks on Taxation generally.

THE labourer's question is not a question for the political economist alone, nor is it to be solved solely from a purely economic point of view. On the contrary, its solution is to be found in the joint operation of all the civilizing forces in society contributing towards this end. All the civilizing influences of our day must be brought to bear on social reform; science, literature, the press, art, education, and the church with its religious incentives; all these have a share in bringing about a more healthy condition among the lower strata of society. Happily, they all with the best intentions are beginning the work, although their efforts are as yet too sporadic and imperfect to be of very considerable use. Their cooperation in a more systematic manner, their acting together with as much good sense as now they are acting separately with a right good will, is still required in order to ensure social progress and a cessation of social strife.

This is not the place for treating on the importance

of cultivating better tastes, and encouraging a greater appreciation of the fine arts among the masses, so as to let in more sweetness and light into their daily life, and improving their condition, although much might be said on the influence of æsthetic enjoyments in lifting the working man out of the mire of proletarian degradation.*

A more general diffusion of economic knowledge, a better education in the technical arts, and an increased awakening of political interest among the masses, important as they are, will prove to be insufficient in themselves for healing the sores of the social body politic; the softening influences of higher culture too must exercise their important office in soothing, refining, and elevating humanity.

Upon this we cannot enter at large now. The influences of church and state, the vocation of the church in the discussion, and the province of state interference in the settlement, of social questions, shall form the only subjects of this our concluding chapter. First, then, with regard to the church.

Theologians differ very much in their appreciation of this subject, one extreme section of the clergy abstaining altogether from, and the other meddling perhaps too much with, the social politics of the day. In Germany the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mayence, engaged in a mortal strife with the liberal party, represents the latter. In his writings there is a tendency towards siding with the social democrats, as the best means perhaps of attacking an unbelieving plutocracy.+

*On this subject see Mr. Ruskin's charming little book on "The Political Economy of Art."

+ In a speech of his, published under the title, "Liberalismus, Socialismus, und Christenthum." 1871.

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The motives may not be quite pure, but there can be no doubt as to the powerful influence of ecclesiastical authority thus thrown into the scale of social agitation. The religious element in human nature of the normal type is, and always will be, strong. How important therefore the vocation of the church in attending to, and if possible controlling, by her influence, or at least modifying where it appears necessary, popular movements! And this especially where her motives are pure, and where the undercurrent is not the unhallowed desire to perturb the social elements for the purpose of fishing in muddy waters for ecclesiastical influence or hierarchical predomi

nance.

Since all social reforms are founded on a humane spirit, and the Christian desire to banish a heathenish impoverishing of any one class by another, social reforms require the sanction of religion. The religion of Jesus, making love towards God and the brethren the fundamental principle, may therefore do much towards defining the social duties and pointing out the objects of social morality. Humanitarianism itself more or less derives its strength from Christianity; for its main moral spring is the maxim, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." From this it would appear that the doctrine of non-intervention, a sort of clerical laissez-faire principle, which the other extreme section of the clergy mentioned above adopt, is unjustifiable; the practical part of the religious life demands the attention of the spiritual custodian as well as the theoretic.

Now the social questions of the day are comprehended under this head of practical religion. The meddling and muddling of the clergy in such questions (where they remain ignorant of the subject) may be very objectionable; but there is no reason why they should not in a

general way acquaint themselves with social topics of such vast importance in their bearing on the religious as well as the physical and moral well-being of their people.

As a rule the Rev. Pomposity and the Rev. Platitude Plausible content themselves by preaching resignation and abstinence to the labouring people, forgetting to teach the more privileged classes their social duties towards inferiors and the sinfulness of their own extravagancies.*

It is this one-sided way of regarding the social questions of the day which has drawn upon the clergy so much odium on the part of the leaders of the working men. On the other hand, merely following the current of popular cries, the loose preaching of brotherly love and a sort of Christian communism, where everybody is to have everything at the expense of nobody, as the only bond of union in the social system, to the exclusion of the so-called worldly system of capitalism and the institutions of the state, is as unpractical as it is unsafe. The expression of these millenarian views will only make sensible men shrug their shoulders at such utopian dreams, and foolish men "to rest and be thankful," instead of pressing forward in doing their appointed task in the great mechanism of society.

To avoid all this, and in order to make the church the moral as well as the spiritual educator of the nation, political economy, as a branch of social science, and the more important problems of sociology ought to receive some attention from the clergy, if only because of the intimate connection which exists between economics

* Compare this with the words of St. James, chap. v. 1-5; and compare some excellent remarks of Canon Girdlestone's on this topic in Macmillan's Magazine for Sept., 1873, p. 440.