Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

PREPARATION OF THE YOUNG.

97

they had to show him that the people to whom he was to minister were in pain or distress, and that if he liked he could make them better. These young fellows did not know that the message of Christ was a priceless thing. Boys were impressed with the idea that in their own hands they had the power to rise. They did not know that the law of our being was dependent upon God. They did not understand that their wills were weak and that if they were able to get away from open sins they fell victims to pride. The whole sense of need which led people to become real Christians was wanted in them. He felt grateful to Mr. Seaton. To teach the young Christian how to pray and how to communicate-these were methods of teaching which in the future would win a great and glorious victory.

The REV. J. P. MAUD, Bristol, said the parochial clergy had their chance in the preparation of boys for confirmation.

Miss H. L. PoWELL, principal of Cambridge Training College, discussed another division of the general question-" Schemes for Higher Religious Education." Her point was that only the most skilled knowledge was adapted to simple Bible teaching of the young. She would have a senior wrangler to teach arithmetic and a theologian to teach religion. Systematic study must be given in the school. If left to the home it could not be systematic. (Hear, hear.)

The REV. A. CARR, Addington, and Mrs. WORDSWORTH, wife of the Bishop of Salisbury, concluded the discussion, the latter advancing the proposition that the clergy did not help the children of the upper classes as they might.

The REV. G. T. MANLEY, secretary in the Church Missionary Society for missionary study, discussed another division of the main subject"Societies for Missionary Study." His leading point was societies to acquaint children with the history of the lives of great missionary heroes to inspire them with enthusiasm for mission work. The Church deplored the lack of missionaries. Had she, he asked, used her best efforts to produce them ?

Mr. T. R. W. LUNT, C.M.S., secretary for work among the young, said the study of mission work was being more and more forced upon us, as well as the study of the great fundamental principles which underlay this work. It was their business to see that our young people were presented with the facts of the case for missions while they had their lives before them and before they had to decide what trend their lives should take. He suggested that the clergy should give definite and frequent missionary education to children.

Miss IRENE WIGRAM having spoken of the importance of co-operation between parent and parish priest,

The REV. the HON. E. LYTTELTON said the question before us, looking to developments in China, Japan, and Africa, was whether humanity was going to progress on material or spiritual lines. The history of the next 10 or 20 years would go far to answer this question. The CHAIRMAN summed up the discussion.

PRACTICAL WORK.

At the afternoon session the subject was further discussed under the head of "Practical Work" in two divisions"School Missions Co and Personal Services." The Bishop of Croydon presided.

[ocr errors]

66

FRIDAY, JUNE 19.

The interest in the sittings of the Pan-Anglican Congress was well sustained to-day, and in two sections-A and B-the discussions were particularly animated. In the former section Capital and Labour " attracted a very large audience to listen to Mr. Masterman, Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, and Mr. Summerbell, M.P., the representative of the Labour party; and in the latter section the question of "Science and Religion" proved to be of such interest that an overflow meeting had to be held.

This

SECTION A.

THE CHURCH AND HUMAN SOCIETY.

section met again in the Albert-hall,

66

when the

subject of discussion was Capital and Labour." As the speakers included a member of the Government as well as a representative of the Labour party, the discussion proved particularly interesting, and it attracted a large audience. The chair was occupied by the Bishop of Columbia.

CAPITAL.

In opening the discussion on this branch of the subject of the day,

Mr. MASTERMAN, M.P., said that the origins of most of the questions discussed in that hall came back to one question-the question of the creation of a new financial and commercial system which was not opposed to but outside of the ordinary Christian ethical obligation. It was not capitalists as men that were concerned, but capital as a system, not certain rich manipulators of finance, but every one who had saved a few pounds and who had, therefore, as an investor, entered the capitalist system—a system which was not immoral, but outside the recognized moral obligations. There was first the direct influence on political, social, and religious desires which might be exerted by being involved in certain enterprises of a doubtful or hazardous character. That must change to some extent the estimate of the morality of those enterprises. For example, the estimate of the rightness of the general control or development of the licensed sale of drink or of servile labour was unconsciously influenced by financial interest. More important was the fact that every investor was, of necessity, dragged into enterprises with which he was altogether unfamiliar and over which he could not exercise any control. The man who invested in life insurance found himself immediately involved as an investor in brewery debentures; and the man who left his money as a balance at the bank might find himself exploiting subject races under questionable conditions in distant parts of the globe. Owing to the quite modern developments of the Joint Stock Company and international finance, the old demand that the individual should exercise moral responsibility for the use of his capital was an impossible demand. Again,

THE CHURCH AND HUMAN SOCIETY.

99

if business and commercial competition turned aside from their end to be influenced by moral considerations, they must inevitably perish. In the fight for control between competing railways, if those engaged stopped to listen to the prayers of the widow and the orphan, there was not much chance of success. It was necessary to recognize that here in the world of business was a world outside the direct control of the Christian ethic; and the plea for the softening of the stress of competition, for listening to the cries of the fallen, was not very much more effective than the plea that people should fight without hurting each other too much. The Church had to deal with men of excellent and exemplary private life. The great captains of industry, the great accumulators of wealth, were not men whom the Church could condemn as men of flagrantly immoral character. The very demands made upon them required them to lead the life of the medieval monk, on a diet of spinach and soup. They were liberal in charity and almost invariably deacons or Sunday school teachers. Luxury belonged to the generation that had not accumulated; and it was a luxury passing into ostentation that had almost become a delirium. The Church must condemn such luxury, but how could it denounce the mere accumulation of wealth in large masses any more than the daily accumulation practised every day by most people in a small way? Commercial success was an end in itself and could not be made a means to an end. If the director of a great public company engaged in this commercial warfare allowed himself to be deflected by moral or immoral motives, he must come to collapse. Revenge was as dangerous for him as passion. It was a world by itself, controlling and influencing men of whom it had no knowledge. The flotation of a company in London might effect total ruin for a body of men on the other side of the globe to whom the floaters had no sentiment except that of benignant indifference. In one case, an industry would be run so as to observe high standards of life for the workers, because it was commercially advantageous to do In another case, low standards producing intolerable conditions would be observed, not because the promoters desired them, but because they were the economic condition of the industry. The situation reminded one of the old Greek view of the control of the ancient Gods, detached, passionless, inappeasable, whose indifference seemed sometimes more intolerable than cruelty. It was an indifference which might become caprice like that of Caliban's, in letting 20 creatures march by unhurt and destroying the twenty-first-loving not, hating not, just choosing so." Was this system to be allowed to stand apart, or could any effort be made to bring it within the Christian ethic, or to draw certain ethical boundaries within which it might carry out its non-moral functions? The preaching of individual responsibility had been tried. There was a sort of idea that while 4 per cent. was a Christian investment, 8 per cent. was a little doubtful and 15 per cent., like a work of supererogation, partook of the nature of sin. But there was much to be said for exactly the reverse point of view; for when the whole of the middle-class investors wrote to the papers protesting against the demands of the railwaymen, it was not because they had investigated the demands, but because dividends had fallen so low that the shareholder said he could not afford to pay a living wage. The sweating investigations conducted by the House of Commons had shown that where the evil was greatest there were numbers of entirely moral and Christian employers who held that higher wages were incompatible with any dividend of less than 8 per cent. Then, while opinion regarded a tobacco trust as tolerable, a beef trust was seen to be more questionable and a bread trust was denounced from the pulpits. Was it possible that through the collective action of the whole community timulated and moralized by the Christian Church, certain

So.

boundaries should be established of moral obligation and ethical control beyond which the non-moral manipulations of capital should be permitted ? In regard to slavery and the minimum wage, that boundary had already been established. But it would be unwise to nag at the rich or at capital, or to preach individual responsibility at the capitalists. It was not the easy method, but the hardest of all that he was suggesting. The Church was wrestling not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers—a great inert system which demanded far more intelligence and capacity to control than the individual. Without that control of the material by the spiritual elements of the world no intelligible society could for any long time endure. (Cheers.)

PROFESSOR R. M. BURROWS said that it was well to remember that we were all capitalists now-even the members of co-operative societies, friendly societies, and trade unions. Indeed, a fighting trade union that kept money on deposit at the bank was a capitalist whose moral responsibilities were of an acute kind. These great investing corporations had their money all over the world, and owing to the manner in which the money was being used men and women were leading wholesome, happy lives or sordid and miserable ones. We could not wash our hands of the blood of the oppressed. Such considerations should vitally affect our attitude towards industrial reform. Our action, too, could not be limited to our own country, for capital knew no boundaries. We could not know that our money was not implicated in that most terrible of terrors- -the Red Rubber of Congo. But a strenuous interest in industrial reform did not cover the ground. What was the duty of the shareholder? There were some businesses which the sensitive man would avoid. There were some businesses notoriously evil and others as notoriously upright. In the eyes of Christians there should be no assets like honour and justice. But most businesses came under neither category of good or evil clearly—such, for example, as that of a railway company. There the shareholder should always inquire and sometimes object, and not allow conscience to be deadened by investments. We were accustomed to hold that the great landlord or private employer had responsibilities for the moral and spiritual well-being of the localities where their estates or works were placed. But what of the district where the only employer was the joint stock company-that new form of the absentee landlord? (Cheers.) Was it not the duty of every Christian who received dividends from a concern in remote parts to see that a reasonable proportion went back for the moral and spiritual needs of those parts ? (Cheers.) Many well-to-do Christians subscribed little to purposes of national scope, and thought that they did their duty if they relieved cases of glaring distress in the places where they lived. But those places where they chose to live-the congested areas of wealth-stultified any such charity. The power to give was in excess of the local needs. Asia, Africa, and America were constantly sending over dividends to this country; but the tithe of Christian charity which was their due was not always sent back. (Cheers.)

Mr. G. H. V. JENKINS (Australia) urged that capital could not be considered as an abstraction apart from the individuals who controlled it, and whose virtues and imperfections it reflected. In Australia the capitalist was being squeezed out to make the Labour party capitalists. (Laughter.) After all, while the rich man had enormous power for good, his power of doing evil was much more limited. If it was always assumed that the capitalist's intentions were evil, he might not trouble to live up to the higher standard to which otherwise he would be anxious to conform.

CANON H. S. HOLLAND said that the most remarkable thing about political economy was that it changed so. We had thought that we were in the presence of a world of rigid austerities that would go on of its

THE CHURCH AND HUMAN SOCIETY.

101

own momentum. But it was not so, and the curious thing was that the scientist could never prophesy what the changes would be. Capital, which used to be purely individualistic, had more and more deindividualized tself. At first severely competitive, it had discovered the waste of the competitive system, and was endeavouring to undo it. Then this capital, which denounced all interference with the market, was now setting up large controls and arrangements of the markets. The mere scale of the transactions had brought about these changes in capital. The enormous scale on which its operations must be carried on to control markets had broken down the individualism and the personal element in commerce. had delocalized itself, too, and thereby dehumanized itself.

It It had become

a large abstraction, and also it had become cosmopolitan. It was every. where and anywhere, and the only people who did not know where it was were the shareholders. Capital was now a sort of electric ether as sensitive as a woman, always in a panic or in a fit of delirious happiness. It became harder and harder to see how many people were concerned in the creation of capital, for the apparent controllers were dependent on a vast, worldwide apparatus to the working of which millions contributed. Men worked all day to provide the information that the man who pressed the button used for five minutes. These men were not the greatest of the earth. He had been told that they had a sort of instinct like that of the homing pigeon, and, without being able to say how or why, they knew in what direction money was moving. But as capital had been dehumanized, the State had had to come in more and more to regulate its working. Beside this abstract, unhuman, impersonal, cosmopolitan capital was labour, which had gained its political freedom to find that it had no industrial independence, because it had no control over all that constituted its means of production. Because labour was utterly dependent on capital it demanded a voice in saying how that capital should be used. The only power by which labour had been able to face this enormous force was trade unionism, and there was a large world outside the reach of trade unions. Therefore the power of the municipality and the State must be brought in. How could capital be moralized to serve the welfare of the whole ? All who valued human liberty as the primal heritage of life would feel the trouble of this industrial anxiety, and would feel a little fired by this industrial hope. (Cheers.)

The REV. F. LEWIS DONALDSON (Leicester) said that modern statesmanship must find the solution by which the two antagonistic interests of industry could be reconciled. It was no longer the rights of man that were raised, but the right to work, the right to live. Land, water, factories, and all the instruments of production were now monopolized. Political without economic liberty was not enough for the worker, and that meant national control of the great means of life.

Mr. C. RODEN BUXTON urged that the Socialistic solution held the field, while the REV. C. H. S. MATTHEWS stood up stoutly for the Labour party in Australia. Mr. H. F. S. GRIMWADE (of Australia), on the other hand, condemned Socialism, with which the Labour party was bound up, as being destructive of the home. Other speakers followed, and

The CHAIRMAN, in summing up, said that people in this country who received dividends from distant colonies ought to return some part at least to uphold the work of the Church. Legislation had not the last word on this subject of capital. That belonged to a higher power, ruling over capital and labour alike, whose word the Church must set forth perpetually.

« AnteriorContinuar »