Wi. 24, 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Bees Olas Ghnaeeo 
 
 Conference On Christian 
 BOLLE ss Economics and 
 
 Industry and Property 
 
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C.0.P.E.C. Commission Reports. Volume IX 
 
 INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
C.O.P.E.C. COMMISSION 
 REPORTS 
 
 VotuMEI], Tue Nature or Gop anp His 
 PuRPOSE FOR THE WoRLD 
 
 II. Epucation 
 Tue Home 
 
 IV. Tue RELATION oF THE SEXES 
 LEISURE 
 Tue TREATMENT OF CRIME 
 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
 CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 
 INDUsTRY AND PROPERTY 
 Poirics AND CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Tue Socrat Funcrion oF 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 HistoricaL ILtusTRATIONS 
 OF THE SociaL EFFEcTs 
 oF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 
 
 First published. ; - April 1924 
 Second Impression ‘ . July 1924 
 
INDUSTRY AND 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 Being the Report presented to the ‘Conference on 
 Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship 
 
 at Birmingham, April §-12, 1924 
 
 Published for the Conference Committee by 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4 
 NEW YORK, TORONTO 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
 1924 
 
BASIS 
 
 Tue basis of this Conference is the conviction 
 that the Christian faith, rightly interpreted and 
 consistently followed, gives the vision and the 
 power essential for solving the problems of to-day, 
 that the social ethics of Christianity have been 
 greatly neglected by Christians with disastrous 
 consequences to the individual and to society, and 
 that it is of the first importance that these should 
 be given a clearer and more persistent emphasis. 
 In the teaching and work of Jesus Christ there are 
 certain fundamental principles—such as the universal 
 Fatherhood of God with its corollary that mankind 
 is God’s family, and the law “ that whoso loseth his 
 life, findeth it ”’—which, if accepted, not only 
 condemn much in the present organisation of 
 society but show the way of regeneration. Christi- 
 anity has proved itself to possess also a motive power 
 for the transformation of the individual, without 
 which no change of policy or method can succeed. 
 In the light of its principles the constitution of 
 society, the conduct of industry, the upbringing 
 of children, national and international politics, the 
 personal relations of men and women, in fact all 
 human relationships, must be tested. It is hoped 
 that through this Conference the Church may win 
 a fuller understanding of its Gospel, and hearing 
 a clear call to practical action may find courage 
 to obey. 
 
 iv 
 
GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 THE present volume forms one of the series of 
 Reports drawn up for submission to the Conference 
 on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship, 
 held in Birmingham in April 1924. 
 
 In recent years Christians of all denominations 
 have recognised with increasing conviction that 
 the commission to “go and teach all nations” 
 involved a double task. Alongside of the work of 
 individual conversion and simultaneously with it 
 an effort must be made to Christianise the corporate 
 life of mankind in all its activities. Recent de- 
 velopments since the industrial revolution, the vast 
 increase of population, the growth of cities, the 
 creation of mass production, the specialisation of 
 effort, and the consequent interdependence of 
 individuals upon each other, have given new sig- 
 nificance to the truth that we are members one of 
 another. ‘The existence of a system and of methods 
 unsatisfying, if not antagonistic to Christian life, 
 constitutes a challenge to the Church. The work 
 of a number of pioneers during the past century 
 has prepared the way for the attempt to examine 
 and test our social life in the light of the principles 
 revealed in Jesus Christ, and to visualise the require- 
 ments of a Christian civilisation. Hitherto such 
 attempts have generally been confined to one or 
 two aspects of citizenship; and, great as has been 
 
 Vv 
 
GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 their value, they have plainly shown the defects of 
 sectional study. We cannot Christianise life in 
 compartments: to reform industry involves the 
 reform of education, of the home life, of politics 
 and of international affairs. What is needed is not 
 a number of isolated and often inconsistent plans 
 appropriate only to a single department of human ~ 
 activity, but an ideal of corporate life constructed 
 on consistent principles and capable of being applied 
 to and fulfilled in every sphere. | 
 
 The present series of Reports is a first step in 
 this direction. Each has been drawn up by a 
 Commission representative of the various denomina- 
 tions of British Christians, and containing not only 
 thinkers and students, but men and women of large 
 and differing practical experience. Our endeavour 
 has been both to secure the characteristic contri- 
 butions of each Christian communion so as to gain 
 a vision of the Kingdom of God worthy of our 
 common faith, and also to study the application of 
 the gospel to actual existing conditions—to keep 
 our principles broad and clear and to avoid the 
 danger of Utopianism. We should be the last to 
 claim any large or general measure of success. ‘The 
 task is full of difficulty: often the difficulties have 
 seemed insurmountable. 
 
 But as it has proceeded we have discovered an 
 unexpected agreement, and a sense of fellowship 
 so strong as to make fundamental divergences, where 
 they appeared, matters not for dispute but for frank 
 and sympathetic discussion. Our Reports will not 
 be in any sense a final solution of the problems with 
 which they are concerned. They represent, we 
 
 vi 
 
GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 believe, an honest effort to see our corporate life 
 steadily and whole from the standpoint of Christi- 
 anity; and as such may help to bring to many a 
 clearer and more consistent understanding of that 
 Kingdom for which the Church longs and labours 
 and prays. 
 
 However inadequate our Reports may appear— 
 and in view of the magnitude of the issues under 
 discussion and the infinite grandeur of the Christian 
 gospel inadequacy is inevitable—we cannot be too 
 thankful for the experience of united inquiry and 
 study and fellowship of which they are the fruit. 
 
 It should be understood that these Reports are 
 printed as the Reports of the Commissions only, 
 and any resolutions adopted by the Conference on 
 the basis of these Reports will be found in The 
 Proceedings of C.O.P.E.C., which also contains a 
 General Index to the series of Reports. 
 

 
LIST OF COMMISSION MEMBERS 
 
 The Commission responsible for the production of this Report 
 was constituted as follows :— 
 
 Chairman :—Miss CONSTANCE SMITH. 
 
 Members of the Commission :— 
 
 AMMON, C. G., Esg., J.P., M.P. 
 Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. 
 
 BIRCHALL, Major J. D., B.A., M.P. 
 
 M.P. for N.E. Leeds; Major R. Glos. Hussars Yeomanry; 
 Member of National Assembly of Church of England (Glou- 
 cester Dio.); Second Church Estates Commissioner (Eccle- 
 siastical Commission); J.P. County Glos., and late Alderman, 
 Glos. C.C. 
 
 CARLYLE, THE Rev. A. J., M.A., D.Litt. 
 
 Lecturer in Politics and Economics of University and Lincoln 
 Colleges, Oxford. 
 
 CHILD, THE Rev. Maurice, M.A., F.R.G.S. 
 
 Librarian of Pusey House, Oxford; Proctor in the Con- 
 vocation of Canterbury. 
 
 CUNNISON, J., Esq., M.A. 
 Lecturer in Social Economics, University of Glasgow. 
 
 FYFFE, THE Rev. Davip, M.A. 
 
 Minister of Jesmond Presbyterian Church, Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne. 
 
 *GEE, ALLEN, Eso. 
 (Yorkshire Textile Union). 
 
 * Mr. Gee resigned his membership, to the regret of the Com- 
 mission, in the summer of 1923, owing to inability to attend. 
 
 1x 
 
LIST OF COMMISSION MEMBERS 
 
 GILBERTSON, F. W., Eso. 
 Director W. Gilbertson & Co., Ltd., Pontardawe Steel Works. 
 
 GRETTON, Mrs. R. H. Sturce, J.P. 
 J.P. for the County of Oxford. Only woman “ Appointed ”’ 
 Member of the Agricultural Wages Board for Oxfordshire; 
 writer and lecturer on social and economic subjects, par- 
 ticularly on rural problems. 
 
 MALLON, J. J., Esg., M.A. 
 Warden of Toynbee Hall, Hon. Sec. Trades Boards Advisory 
 Council to the General Council of Trades Union Congress; 
 Member of many Trade Boards. 
 
 MESS, H. A., Eso. 
 Social Study Secretary of the Student Christian Movement; 
 Research Student of London School of Economics ; formerly 
 Secretary of Mansfield House University Settlement; Author 
 of Casual Labour at the Docks, Studies in the Christian Gospel 
 for Society, etc. 
 
 MITCHELL, E. Rosstyn, Esg., M.A., LL.B., J.P. 
 Councillor of City of Glasgow; Magistrate; Member of | 
 I.L.P.; Labour Candidate for Glasgow-Central Division. 
 
 MURRAY, THE Rev. ROBERT HENRY, LittT.D. 
 
 Rector of Broughton; Supervisor of Historical Studies in 
 University of Oxford; Author of Evasmus and Luther: 
 Their Attitude to Toleration, etc. 
 
 MUSPRATT, Str Max, Bart. 
 
 Chairman of the United Alkali Co., Ltd.; Alderman City of 
 Liverpool; Vice-President Federation of British Industries; 
 Chairman of Association of British Chemical Manufacturers. 
 
 OGDEN; J. 'W.., "E59. JP. 
 President of Amalgamated Weavers; President of Trades - 
 Union Congress (1918); Trades Union Congress delegate to 
 America (1920); Member of Government Commission on 
 Industrial Unrest (1916-17), and of General Committee 
 Trades Union Congress, and of Committee of International 
 Textile Workers. 
 
 PAISH, Sir GEORGE. 
 
 Fellow of Council of Royal Statistical Society; Governor of 
 London School of Economics; Author of Savings and Social 
 Welfare, etc. 
 
 PHILLIPS, Miss Mary E. 
 
 Vice-Chairman of Y.W.C.A. Industrial Law Bureau; Speaker 
 and writer on Industrial Questions. 
 
 x 
 
LIST OF COMMISSION MEMBERS 
 
 PIERCY, W., Esq. 
 On Management of Messrs. Harrison’s & Crosfield. 
 
 PILKINGTON, L. G., Eso. 
 Secretary Central Council for Economic Information. 
 
 EXYDUS,) P.-].,: Eso. 
 Managing Director of the English Electric Company. 
 
 REASON, THE Rev. W., M.A. 
 
 Organising Secretary of ‘‘The Christian Social Crusade,”’ 
 Author of Poverty, Drink and the Community, etc. 
 
 SLESSER, Sir Henry, Kti,, K.C, 
 
 STRANG, Wittiam, Esq. 
 Artizan. 
 
 STREETER, Miss Apa. 
 Hon. Secretary of Industrial Committee of N.C.W.; Member 
 of Staff of The Catholic Social Guild; Formerly Hon. Org. 
 Secretary of Catholic Women’s Guild. 
 
 STUART SMITH, Tue Rev. C. 
 Missioner of the Ipswich Mission. 
 
 TAWNEY, R. H., Esq. 
 Lecturer London School of Economics. 
 
 TURNER, BEn, Esq., M.P., J.P. 
 County and Borough Alderman and Freeman of the Borough 
 of Batley; Member of General Council of Trades Union 
 Congress; General President of the National Union of 
 Textile Workers. 
 
 WATSON, Anaus, Esgq., J.P. 
 Chairman of Angus Watson & Co., Ltd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 and of the Imperial Canneries Co., Ltd., Stavanger, Norway. 
 
 YATES, W. B., Esq., J.P. 
 
 Barrister-at-Law, J.P. and Deputy-Chairman of Quarter 
 Sessions for Flintshire; Appointed Member of Central Agri- 
 cultural Wages Board. Previously—Umpire (Crown) Unem- 
 ployment Insurance; Chairman of First Trades Board and of 
 Midland and S. Wales General Munitions Tribunal, and of 
 Government Committee for Compensating Mercantile Marine 
 for Loss of Property (1916-1919). 
 
  Note.—The Commission is greatly indebted to the War and Social 
 Order Committee of the Society of Friends, and Mr. B. S. Rowntree 
 for material supplied, and also to those Copec Study Circles, whose 
 replies to the questionnaire on Industry and Property have 
 aftorded information and help. 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Basis. : ‘ : : ‘ ; : ; iv 
 
 GENERAL PREFACE . : ‘ - : . : Vv 
 
 List oF Commisston Members . j : 7 - 1x 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION : ; : ; ; ; I 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Present Conpitions: Inpustry . i . 7 Stites, 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PresenT Conpitions: Finance . f : ; pest 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PresENT ConpiTions : COMMERCE , " : eLLOT: 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Human CHARACTER AND THE SYSTEM . : ° SHY a | 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ‘THE ConsuMER’s RESPONSIBILITY ° : . ne AOS 
 Xiil 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Motives 1n InpDusTRY 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Tue CuristiAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 EFForTs TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE CHRISTIAN ORDER 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CoNCLUSION 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Tue Poputation ProsLeM 
 
 XIV 
 
 PAGE 
 
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CHAPTER I 
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CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 WE approach this consideration of Industry and 
 Property with the definite spiritual conviction that 
 the sovereignty of God is supreme over all human 
 life. ‘That means that all the activities by which 
 men seek to obtain and enjoy the material goods 
 which minister to their well-being are subject to 
 His moral demands. It may be possible con- 
 sistently and intelligently to deny God and His 
 claims altogether; it is neither consistent nor 
 intelligent to seek His way of life in some things 
 and ignore or even repudiate it in others. For 
 while “the Kingdom of God is not eating and 
 drinking,” it zs “righteousness, peace and joy in 
 the Holy Spirit,” and these conditions are either 
 fulfilled or frustrated by what men do with regard 
 to property and industry, as in other matters. 
 Their personal relations with each other are deeply 
 involved. It is irue that the value of material 
 goods as such can be grievously over-estimated, but 
 it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the 
 spirit in which they are handled or the results upon 
 human personality. 
 
 It is this note which distinguishes an investigation 
 by Christian bodies such as the present+ from the 
 
 1 F.g. the Report of the Archbishops’ Fifth Committee of 
 Inguiry: ‘Christianity and Industrial Problems.” Also the 
 
 American Interdenominational Committee on the War and the 
 Religious Outlook: ‘The Church and Social Reconstruction.” 
 
 3 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 many purely economic, industrial and social dis- 
 cussions that have been held. We have regard first 
 of all to motives, human relations and effects upon 
 character, which are either in accordance or in 
 conflict with the will of God as we find it expressed 
 in Jesus. But this neither excuses nor disqualifies 
 us from the task of examining the economic working . 
 of existing industry, commerce and finance, nor 
 from shaping all suggestions for a better moral 
 order with due regard to what are known as economic 
 laws. ‘To ignore the material conditions on which 
 economic organisation must be based, with however 
 good intentions, leads inevitably to disaster. It is 
 true that if there is conflict in our understanding 
 of these, the moral law has the right to our obedience ; 
 none the less, if we are compelled to challenge any 
 accepted statement of economics, we are equally 
 bound at least to search for some truer statement 
 to take its place. 
 
 This is why, in the following pages, we have to 
 deal with hard facts and some difficult and intricate 
 problems. Difficulties may not be shirked because 
 they are difficult, nor can our Christian faith dwell 
 always on the Mount of Transfiguration. It must 
 come down for loyal action in the world of things 
 as they are if it is to have a share in making the 
 world as it ought to be. 
 
 That this Kingdom of God is a spiritual! kingdom, 
 ruling the inner life of men—their thoughts and 
 desires, their trust and their will—rather than a 
 mere alteration of circumstance, so far from being 
 an objection, as not infrequently urged, is the very 
 heart and core of the position here taken. All 
 
 4 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 changes in the order of society, so far as they have 
 been successful, have been so because they embody 
 spiritual and moral ideals, and it is therefore that 
 not only preachers, but others, such as industrial 
 leaders and statesmen, are calling for a change of 
 spirit. 
 
 But such a change, if real, must bring definite 
 consequences. It does not stop our daily activities 
 and our associations with our fellow-men, but it 
 does make them different. “Though a change of 
 method may not necessarily produce a change of 
 spirit, it is inconceivable that a change from a self- 
 seeking spirit to one that seeks God’s purpose will 
 not alter our methods. ‘The truly spiritual life 
 will make for itself an organ by which to mould 
 conditions according to that purpose. 
 
 What then are the guiding spiritual principles 
 by which we must test the things that are and 
 work constructively for the things that ought to 
 be? Here, again, as Christians speaking to our 
 fellow-Christians, we base ourselves unreservedly 
 on the teaching of Jesus Christ, and must give 
 some space here to a study of that teaching. 
 
 I. Tue Etruicat Nature or THE TEACHING 
 
 One or two general questions seem to need an 
 answer at the outset, before proceeding to examine 
 particular passages. 
 
 1. It has been asserted that Jesus Himself con- 
 fidently expected a speedy end to existing earth 
 conditions, and that therefore His teaching was 
 suitable for men who would soon have no use for 
 
 5 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the things of earth, but quite impracticable for us 
 who have to handle them continuously. ‘That there 
 was what is called an “apocalyptic”? element in 
 His teaching must be admitted, though the inter- 
 pretation that is put upon these passages is highly 
 disputable. We are, however, freed from the — 
 necessity of entering upon this discussion by the 
 fact that He gives the teaching generally as normal 
 and abiding; indeed as springing from the nature 
 of God Himself. The Kingdom of God, whether 
 it come soon or late, is in its essence spiritual, “‘ the 
 Kingdom of God is within you”; the conditions 
 of entrance are moral and therefore regulative for 
 all time, not merely temporary conditions for the 
 enjoyment of blessedness in a future Messianic age. 
 Also, the Kingdom is to come “on earth,” + and 
 the result of making the Reign of God our first 
 endeavour is declared to include a sufficiency of 
 our ordinary earthly food and the other things 
 which “ your Father knows you need.” 
 
 More cogent still is the fact that the conduct 
 specifically described as suitable for those who 
 look for a coming that may happen at any time is 
 that of the steward set to provide for the needs of 
 a household,? and of the man of business being 
 faithful to his job in the steady continuous way.® 
 These passages are actually in the apocalyptic 
 sections. ‘Ihe inference seems irresistible that in 
 the view of Jesus Himself His teaching was quite 
 independent of time, place and external conditions ; 
 
 1 Matt. vi. Io. 2 Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42. 
 3 Matt. xxv. 14 f.; Luke xix. 12. 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 over these last it would have great power of change 
 but could not be changed by them. 
 
 2. It is frequently said that Jesus’ teaching was 
 addressed to individuals, not to society as such. 
 The positive truth in this seems to be that He 
 laid stress on the springs of action rather than 
 upon the external conduct. But as the inner life 
 of men is the source not only of what they do 
 separately, but of what they do socially, the dis- 
 tinction seems to be without meaning. Moral and 
 spiritual principles are not annulled simply because 
 persons have in many ways to act collectively. 
 
 Jesus conceived of the salvation of the individual 
 as his entrance into service of the Kingdom of 
 God.! 
 
 (a) This conception of the Kingdom of God 
 was already implicit in the “law and the prophets.” * 
 Jesus said, “‘ Think not that I came to destroy the 
 law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but 
 to fulfil.” Both the law and the prophets were 
 intensely social in their teaching and demands. 
 
 (b) The “ gospel of the Reign of God ” implies 
 a society. The prayer that God’s will be “ done 
 on earth as in heaven” is not compatible with 
 the notion that the practical business of life is 
 exempt, or that whole regions of human activity 
 can be ignored. 
 
 A Matt.) v. 20; vii. 21; xviii. 3; > xix. 23, 245 xxv. 21 and 
 34; Mark ix. 47; xii. 34; Luke vii. 28; 1x. 62, etc. 
 
 2 Cf. Exod. xv. 18; xix. 6; Ps. xciii. 1; ciii. 19; cxlv. 11-13; 
 Isa. xxiv. 23; xxxiii. 22; xli. 21; xliii. 15; lii.7; Dan. vi. 26; 
 Hos. xiii. 10; Obad. 21; Mic. iv. 7; Zech. xiv. 9. 
 
 3 Matt. v. 17. 
 
 7 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 (c) Jesus bids us “‘ Render unto Cesar the things 
 that are Cesar’s.”’ Cesar was the representative 
 of social and political authority. Now that mem 
 and women generally are responsible, being collec- 
 tively “‘ Cesar,” the demands are upon our judg- 
 ment and conscience as well as upon our purse, and 
 are yet more closely interwoven with the “ things 
 that are God’s.” In Matt. v. 41 also we are bidden 
 to make our response to State demands whole-hearted 
 instead of perfunctory. i 
 
 (2d) In Matt. xxv. 32 it is the “ nations ” that are 
 put to the test of their attitude to the social problem 
 to-day, succinctly stated in terms of human life. 
 While allowing that it must refer to individuals as 
 well as societies, there seems no reason to exclude 
 the latter, especially as the things required can only 
 be done effectively by social action. 
 
 3. What has already been said meets very largely 
 the assertion that all the seeming references to 
 material things are only images of the “ spiritual,” 
 based on such passages as ‘‘ My kingdom is not 
 of this world, else would My servants fight.” ‘This 
 saying does not contradict the coming of the 
 Kingdom upon earth; it simply asserts that Jesus 
 did not derive His authority from the existing 
 world-order nor support it by the world’s methods. 
 According to His teaching the spirit is all-important, 
 as is the soundness of the life of the tree, but its 
 soundness must necessarily be shown in practical 
 activity. “The tree is known by its fruits.” 
 “Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the 
 things that I say?” ‘The man or nation that 
 hears but does not carry the teaching into action 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 is “‘ building on the sand,” and action is necessarily 
 concerned with material things. The spiritual life 
 is not shown by disconnection with external con- 
 ditions, but by its dominance over them. 
 
 II. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 The paucity of teachings which have explicit 
 reference to Industry must not be allowed to 
 obscure the principles which, applying generally, 
 include Industry in their scope. These may be 
 stated briefly. 
 
 1. The right character and conduct of man is a 
 reflection of the character and conduct of God. 
 "That ye may be sons of your Father who is in 
 heaven’; “ Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father 
 is perfect”; ‘‘ Be ye merciful as your Father is 
 merciful”; ‘‘ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they 
 shall be called the sons of God”; ‘‘ Seek first His 
 reign and His righteousness.” # 
 
 2. While the moral law of God is universally 
 operative, His fatherly love includes all men. “ He 
 maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, 
 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” ® 
 
 It is aimed at the restoration of evildoers rather 
 than giving them their strict deserts. ‘‘ Joy shall 
 be in heaven over one sinner that repents.” 4 “‘ God 
 sent not His Son to judge the world, but that the 
 world should be saved through Him.”*® He has 
 especial care for little children. “It is not the 
 
 1 Matt. vii. 15-27. 
 
 2 Matt. v. 45; v. 48; Luke vi. 36; Matt. v.9; vi. 33. 
 
 3 Matt. v. 45. 4 Luke xv. 7. 5 John iii. 17. 
 
 9 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 will of your Father that one of these little ones 
 should perish.” 4 
 
 3. The right relation of man to man is there- 
 fore that of brotherhood. ‘‘ All ye are brethren.” ” 
 The essence of the law and the prophets is in the 
 ‘““ Golden Rule,” to deal with the needs of others 
 as if they were our own. ‘This relation is illustrated © 
 in the parables of the Good Samaritan and the 
 Prodigal Son. Where it is broken, its restoration 
 is of prime importance. - “ Forgive until seventy 
 times seven.” ‘This is the condition of our own 
 forgiveness with God.? 
 
 4. The central purpose to which all endeavour 
 and aspiration should be directed is the reign of 
 God, the doing of His will, in human society.°® 
 This is declared to be life in all its fullness. “I 
 am come that they may have life to the full.”® It 
 is the very best for man. ‘‘ What shall it profit 
 a man if he gain the whole world and lose his life ? ” * 
 
 These central principles give the key to what 
 is said with explicit reference to Industry and 
 Property ; which with all other matters, such as 
 Family Relations, Education, Politics, Recreation, 
 “esthetic and Scientific Pursuits, etc., are of value 
 or the reverse as they serve or damage the life of 
 persons. 
 
 III. Direct REFerENces To INDUSTRY AND 
 
 PROPERTY 
 1. “ Life ranks above food; the body above 
 1 Matt. xviii. 14. 2 Matt. xxiii. 8. 3 Matt. xviii. 22. 
 
 * Matt. vi. 15; Mark xi. 25, 26; Luke xi. 4. 
 > Matt. vi. 33 and Io. § John x. 10. 7 Mark viii. 36, 37. 
 Io 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 meat,” 1 2. ¢. the value of material goods is that of 
 a means to an end; they are not an end in them- 
 selves. Hence to seek them apart from their value 
 to human life is to miss the mark. ‘This interprets 
 such passages as “ Lay not up for yourselves 
 treasures on earth . . . but treasures in heaven ”’ 
 —1.é. in the spiritual life.* ‘‘ Labour not for the 
 meat that perishes, but for the meat that abides 
 unto eternal life.’ ‘ Man shall not live by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the 
 mouth of God.’”4 In all these the negative first 
 part must not be separated from the positive end 
 to which it is an introduction. Jesus fully recog- 
 nised the real value of material goods. “ Your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of 
 all these things.” ° 
 
 2. When material possessions are divorced from 
 the service of life they have a mischievous effect. 
 “How hardly shall they that have riches enter 
 into the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel 
 to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich 
 man to enter into the Kingdom of God.” ®& Com- 
 pare the parables of the Rich Fool and Dives and 
 Lazarus. 
 
 “‘ Rich ” always appears to have a relative sense 
 of superabundance, in comparison with (a) one’s 
 real needs, ¢. g. “‘ A man’s life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things which he possesseth,” ’ 
 
 1 Matt. vi. 25; Luke xii. 23. 2 Matt. vi. 19. 
 3 John vi. 27. 4 Matt. iv. 4; Luke iv. 4. 
 5 Matt. vi. 31; Luke xii. 30. 
 6 Matt. xix. 27; Mark x. 23; Luke xviii. 24. 
 ? Luke xii. 15. 
 II 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 and (4) other people’s lack, as in the case of Dives.+ 
 Compare also the repeated injunction to give to 
 the poor. 
 
 In detail, the evil results attributed to “ riches ” 
 ares | 
 
 (a) Covetousness—This is incompatible with 
 wealth of character and fellowship with God. — 
 ‘So is he that lays up treasure for himself and is 
 not rich towards God.”2 Also, “the cares of 
 this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the 
 lusts of other things entering in, choke the word.” 8 
 
 (b) A false confidence——Riches may decay or be 
 stolen, banks may break, or businesses may fail. 
 ‘“‘ Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
 neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
 thieves do not break through nor steal.” * ‘Trust 
 in the money power excludes trust in God and 
 His way of life. ‘“‘ How hard is it for them that 
 trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” ® 
 
 (c) Anxiety about means——This destroys the joy 
 of life and diverts our purpose from the true ends. 
 “Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, 
 or what ye shall drink, or what ye shall put on. 
 Is not the life more than the meat, and the body 
 than raiment?” ® 
 
 (d) Defection from God’s service.—Preoccupation 
 with the task of getting or keeping wealth becomes 
 absorbing, to the exclusion of working for God’s 
 ends. ‘‘ Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” ? 
 
 (e) Blindness to others’ needs—This Jesus puts as 
 
 1 Luke xvi. 19 and 25. 2 Luke xii. 21. 
 3 Mark iv. 109. 4 Matt. vi. 20. 5 Mark x. 24. 
 6 Matt. vi. 25. 7 Matt. vi. 24; Luke xvi. 13. 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 equivalent to ignoring the needs of “the Son of 
 Man.” ‘‘When saw we Thee an hungered, or 
 athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, 
 and did not minister unto Thee?” 
 
 (f) 4 thoroughly unsocial character—The sum 
 total is seen in the necessary exclusion from the 
 fellowship of those who can be completely ruled 
 by God. While those who are of the nature to 
 minister to the need of others are selected for “‘ the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
 the world,” those who have ignored the need are 
 rejected as unfit. This seems to be no arbitrary 
 or external punishment, but the necessary outcome 
 of character.” 
 
 3. On the other hand, material goods, which 
 when sought and heaped up “for oneself”? are 
 so dangerous, become serviceable when applied to 
 the needs of others. The recommendation to use 
 them for remedying the lack of the poor is a constant 
 theme. The parable of the Good Samaritan #4 
 shows that what is intended is real helpfulness and 
 not merely the “acquisition of merit.” The 
 parable of the Steward shows that if a worldly- 
 minded man can make his place in society secure 
 by looking after others, this is still more possible 
 for those whose conception of society is spiritual. 
 “‘Make for yourselves friends by means of the 
 Mammon of unrighteousness.” ® Once again, the 
 capital teaching on this point is the “ Judgment 
 Scene.” ® Sensitiveness to suffering and lack in 
 
 1 Matt. xxv. 44. 2 Matt. xxv. 31-46. 
 8 Matt. vi. 19; Luke xii. 21. 4 Luke x. 30 f. 
 § Luke xvi. 9. S Matt.xxve 31 f. 
 
 15 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 other lives and readiness to care for their feeding, 
 clothing, need of a home, health and freedom is 
 an indispensable characteristic for the social life 
 that can endure because it is ordered by the 
 sovereignty of God Himself. It is the spirit of 
 Love and the fulfilment of the Golden Rule. 
 
 4. Jesus has no criticism upon industry itself, 
 as the process by which material goods are pro- 
 duced. The main embodiments of industry, such 
 as agriculture, manufacture, domestic work, trade 
 and business management, are all assumed as 
 belonging to human activities, though it would be 
 unsafe to take every allusion for illustrating a 
 general truth as equivalent to approval of that 
 particular thing. 
 
 But He has a severe criticism on the actual 
 results of human industry. He points out that 
 God has made men superior in powers to the birds, 
 in that they can plough, sow, reap and store the 
 resulting harvest, yet they are anxious, as the birds 
 are not. Yet the birds are fed, spite of their weaker 
 powers, in the providence of God. Similarly, His 
 criticism upon human dress is not that people seek 
 beauty too much, but that they do not attain it in 
 the same measure as the flowers; again in spite of 
 their superior powers. He declares that the reason 
 of this is that men get entangled in the means of 
 life—food, raiment, etc.—instead of making life 
 itself the end. As life is the purpose of God for 
 men, He makes this practically equivalent to 
 dethroning God in everyday life. 
 
 Constructively He declares that if in everything 
 men sought to bring their activities under God’s 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 control and to follow His ways—to seek primarily 
 God’s reign and His righteousness—both anxiety 
 and lack would disappear. ‘“‘ All these things shall 
 be added unto you.” ‘This seems to be an un- 
 mistakable assertion that where the spiritual factor 
 is duly recognised, satisfactory economic results 
 must follow. While God might fill the larders 
 and the wardrobes by supernatural means, experi- 
 ence shows that this is not, in fact, His way of 
 working. It is true that there are remarkable 
 instances of special needs being met in answer to 
 prayer, but always the goods used have been pro- 
 duced in the ordinary way. And as the teaching 
 is offered to all men as the way of life, and not to 
 a special class to be supported by the labour of 
 others, Jesus must have considered it as practicable 
 for all. Whatever difficulties may be felt about 
 the application of this to individual cases, its social 
 application seems sure. ‘he passage given in Matt. 
 xix. 27f., Mark x. 28 f., and Luke xviii. 28 f., also 
 distinctly asserts that renunciation of self-seeking 
 for the better way of life will result in much greater 
 abundance “‘in this present time.”” ‘This may refer 
 to value rather than to quantity, but in any case 
 the real end is met and material goods are named 
 as well as social relations. 
 
 5. There are some teachings which have an 
 industrial setting, but the application is of a wider 
 scope. How far can these be taken as approving 
 the transactions mentioned? It seems necessary 
 to distinguish between those illustrations which are 
 as it were the accidental clothing of a principle, 
 and those which are instances of the direct working 
 
 15 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of the principle itself. Sometimes, as in the case 
 of the discharged steward, Jesus purposely selects 
 the ordinary self-seeking conduct of a worldly man 
 to show a good principle working in spite of the 
 self-seeking element. But in other cases the argu- 
 ment would fail unless the particular instance were 
 sound. When the disciples were bidden to accept 
 board and lodging on their missionary tour, because 
 
 “‘ the labourer is worthy of his wages,” ? the validity 
 of this principle in industry is the necessary basis of 
 its extension to spiritual service. 
 
 The parable of the Labourers needs analysis from 
 this point of view. ‘The immediate application to 
 the existing wage-system is disputed and need not 
 be pressed, but the deeper principles illustrated 
 do apply to what is involved in the problems of 
 human labour and human life. Under the reign 
 of God, Jesus says, what men deserve is not the 
 only thing that decides what they get. God’s 
 idea of the “right” thing to be done for them is 
 bigger than what they can claim as their “ right ” ; 
 it is shaped by their needs as well. The “ good” 
 will acts from a larger purpose than strictly retri- 
 butive justice; it seeks the good life in others. 
 
 The social application of this seems fairly clear. 
 The claim of the employer to “do what I will 
 with my own” does not touch what is the wage- 
 earner’s by right; it would be unjust to give any- 
 body less than he earns. ‘The claim is the right to 
 give not less, but more, out of surplus resources. 
 We cannot press the detail of the parable to require 
 individual employers to supplement earnings, but 
 
 1 Matt. x. 10; Luke x, 7. 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 this may well be “‘ what is right” for the general 
 community to give to those that need. And any 
 society which has caught God’s idea of excellence 
 will measure what it spends on its members by 
 what their life needs rather than by their particular 
 deserts. This principle is already applied in some 
 degree, not only in philanthropic and charitable ex- 
 penditure, but in public spending, to raise the 
 standard of life among people generally, in education, 
 public health, etc. Whether the “ equality” is 
 monetary or not is a matter of practical working 
 out; if the needs of each life be met, there is an 
 equality which seems more to the purpose than if 
 it were measured by pounds sterling. 
 
 IV. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 
 
 From this examination we gather some general 
 fundamental principles which the teaching of Jesus 
 implies. 
 
 1. God is our Father, and therefore the true 
 relation of men and women is that of brothers and 
 sisters. ‘The earth ought to be the home of God’s 
 family rather than the battle-field of conflicting 
 aims and interests. Co-operative helpfulness and 
 mutual consideration, not self-seeking competition, 
 give the keynote of human well-being. 
 
 2. Jesus seriously meant this as a practicable 
 result to be achieved upon earth. It is the Reign 
 of God, the doing of His will, which Jesus bade us 
 put in the forefront of our daily prayer and make 
 the prime object of all our activity. Action on 
 any other principle is bound by its nature to fail, 
 
 B 17 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 and indeed has consistently failed throughout the 
 history of the world. 
 
 3. All social institutions and industrial organ- 
 isations must be tested by spiritual standards. ‘The 
 *“‘weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy and 
 faithfulness” apply to what men do together as 
 well as to what they do severally, and tothe common . 
 activities of daily life as well as what they are disposed 
 to call “ sacred.” 
 
 4. The sanctity of human life and personality | 
 demands recognition, not merely by abstention from 
 the more obvious injuries, but by the positive 
 provision for its physical, moral, esthetic and 
 spiritual development. 
 
 5. This social conduct being in harmony with 
 the nature of God is therefore in harmony with the 
 true nature of things, and will, if wisely directed 
 and consistently pursued, produce all that is need- 
 ful for life in its fullness. ‘‘ Seek the Kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness, and all these things 
 shall be added unto you.” 
 
 V. AppLicaTION TO Mopern LiFe 
 
 The specific criticism which Jesus passed upon 
 the life of His day was that men failed because they 
 lost sight of the real purpose, which was life itself, 
 through entanglement in the means which ought 
 to fulfil this purpose. ‘“‘ The life is more than the 
 meat, and the body than raiment.” 
 
 That criticism has remained true through the 
 succeeding centuries and is true of us in the present 
 
 age, which has seen an unparalleled expansion of 
 18 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 human power over the physical world. ‘To appreci- 
 ate its force it is not at all necessary to minimise the 
 beneficent results which modern industry, through 
 business organisation and scientific research, has 
 produced. ‘These may be provisionally summarised 
 as follows without prejudging questions which are 
 discussed more fully. 
 
 1. It supports, in varying degrees of well-being, 
 immense numbers of people. 
 
 2. It has banished, in normal times and in Western 
 civilisation, the fear of local and temporary famines. 
 
 are lt has supplied innumerable appliances for 
 comfort and enjoyment; for rapid transport and 
 transit; for interchange of communication; for 
 ernieation, the treatment of disease, the eenee 
 of pain, and other means of physical well-being. 
 
 4. It has provided the material means for in- 
 definite advance in scientific achievement and at 
 least the apparatus for culture in the arts and 
 literature. 
 
 We can also gladly agree that the last half- 
 century or more has seen a very real improvement 
 in social conditions, in some important respects. 
 It would, however, be a mistake to regard this 
 either as necessarily continuous or as springing from 
 mere increased “ efficiency.”” We are not con- 
 cerned to make exact comparisons with other times, 
 concerning which there may be great divergences 
 of opinion on the part of those best qualified to 
 pronounce, but it may safely be said that when 
 comparisons between the present day and the nine- 
 teenth century are made, our modern improvement 
 is upon an age in which the principles stated above 
 
 19 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 were more decisively denied than in any other and 
 the conditions of men, women and children in 
 industry more deplorable. It is also perfectly fair 
 to claim that whatever progress has been made is 
 the result of the reawakening of the public con- 
 science to these principles of the sanctity of human 
 life and the supremacy of moral and spiritual claims. 
 
 Indeed the great hope for the present time, amid 
 so much that looks like world wreckage and almost 
 hopeless failure, is that the common judgments of | 
 men upon-those failures are so largely based upon 
 the principles which Jesus asserted. The great 
 task before us is to pass from standards of criticism 
 to constructive activity. We need, in our social 
 arrangements, to embody the spirit which is at 
 present unable to find adequate expression. 
 
 So we have to examine, not the question whether 
 we are better or worse than past ages, but the 
 difference between what is within the reach of 
 men when obedient to God’s demands and the 
 actual conditions which have been brought about 
 by disobedience and negligence. 
 
 The facts concerning the lives of obscure multi- 
 tudes have been brought to light by the patient 
 and unprejudiced research of fully qualified investi- 
 gators. Closer contact between people of different 
 social conditions has flung bridges across the gulf 
 of ignorance which still separates the dwellers in 
 comfort from those who live in penury and squalor. 
 Authoritative Commissions have put much sifted 
 information at the disposal of those who are willing 
 to know. Not least important is the general 
 
 literature since the time of Dickens. It is not 
 20 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 possible to-day to brush all this aside on the plea 
 that it is possibly untrue. 
 
 In five main respects at least we are compelled 
 to recognise a great falling short of what might 
 reasonably be looked for in our social life. 
 
 1. An appalling amount of damage to physical 
 life through lack of necessities, vitiated conditions, 
 occupations dangerous to life, limb or health, and 
 other causes. 
 
 2. A lamentable absence of freedom to develop 
 one’s own interests, power and personality and 
 choose the conditions in which they shall be 
 expressed. 
 
 3. The banishing of beauty, conspicuously from 
 our towns, but also from large tracts of the country- 
 side and from the common things of use. 
 
 4. The prevalence of hostility, mistrust and 
 strife, poisoning human relations. It is true that 
 no order of industry would of itself eliminate 
 jealousies, envies, bickerings and conflict, but it 
 cannot be denied that existing conditions tend to 
 foster and inflame these. 
 
 5. Economic strife between nations, issuing from 
 time to time in war, by which the good results of 
 civilisations are in some cases destroyed and the 
 bad features enormously accentuated. 
 
 Here, then, is the field for our survey, with a 
 view to bringing into it the order, peace and beauty 
 
 of the reign of God. 
 
 21 
 
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CHAPTER II 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 

 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 I. Tue Distripution oF WEALTH 
 
 Gross inequality in this distribution strikes the 
 imagination, when brought to bear upon it as it 
 presents itself in the modern industrialised world, as 
 shocking. It is not only repugnant to the principles 
 of the Christian, but revolting to the taste of an 
 educated person, that one class in a country, a small 
 class of which the individuals are not necessarily dis- 
 tinguished above their fellow-citizens for virtue or 
 ability, should command more money than they can 
 possibly spend in any rational or profitable fashion, 
 while by far the largest class in the same country 
 has no security for a good life on the simplest lines, 
 no security even for the basic human needs of shelter, 
 food and clothing, and a substantial portion of this 
 second class is living permanently below the line at 
 which a sufficient minimum of those needs can be 
 satisfied at the cost of any exertion it may put 
 forth. We are so accustomed to this state of things 
 that we accept it as a matter of course; and the 
 circumstances which have grouped us and settled us, 
 by gradual segregation, into Cities of the Rich and 
 Cities of the Poor—as is the case in every large centre 
 of population to-day—spare us the wholesome lesson 
 we might learn from contemplating the two nations 
 
 25 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 side by side. ‘The one literally does not know how 
 the other lives. As the Board of Directors may 
 perhaps sit in a place hundreds of miles distant from 
 the factories it controls, so the industrial magnate, 
 moved by family considerations, social ambition, or 
 general custom, gradually withdraws farther and 
 farther from the scene of his industrial operations. 
 The majority of the leisured, whether “ rich” or 
 no, and of the professional and middle classes, are 
 without information as to conditions of working- 
 class life, other than that they obtain in an occasional 
 lurid Press article dealing with some scandal of the 
 slums, which they (often rightly) discount as exag- 
 gerated and based on imperfect evidence. The 
 daily risks and frequent disasters of factory employ- 
 ment, even in trades not labelled ‘‘ dangerous” by 
 authority, the insidious menace to health in harm- 
 less-seeming processes, the extremes of temperature 
 in which operations employing hundreds of thou- 
 sands of men, women, boys and girls are regularly 
 carried on, do not come within their range of 
 observation ; as little do they realise the cramped, 
 inadequate, insanitary houses, the wilderness of sordid 
 and unlovely streets in which are set the lives, not 
 of slum-dwellers, but of millions of ‘* respectable ” 
 manual workers and their families, surroundings in 
 which the old and sick find no peace and the young 
 no hint of beauty or inspiration. Meanwhile in the 
 minds of residents of these Cities of the Poor all 
 those who live outside their boundaries are apt to 
 be sweepingly lumped together as rich, though the 
 actual income of many dwelling on the fringes of 
 
 the Other City may sometimes be little, if at all, in 
 26 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 excess of that ruling in the more prosperous working- 
 class quarter, the main advantage of the poorer 
 middle-class man’s position consisting in greater 
 economic security and more room to live. On the 
 whole, it is to be doubted whether the thoughtful 
 worker is so much concerned with the vagaries of 
 millionaires, whom he classes with the freaks and 
 exceptions of the social order, as with the favoured 
 position, in comparison with himself, of all those 
 who command some security in living, who do not 
 hold their position, whether earned or unearned, at 
 the mercy of a week’s notice—people to whom the 
 cyclical fluctuations of trade, a fall in the value of 
 certain shares or the oscillations of the professional 
 barometer bring (it seems to him) no worse terror 
 than a curtailment of pleasures or some lessening of 
 ease—at worst, the suppression of needs which are 
 in no way vital to human well-being. 
 
 Geographical separation serves to complete what 
 economic inequality began. ‘The workman lives in 
 one world, his employer in another. And when the 
 industry which is the meeting-place of the two is 
 swept by a storm, it is the workman who first goes 
 under and his home with him. There is no visible 
 attempt to take shares in evil fortune, to soften the 
 calamity by distributing it among allranks. ‘The one 
 City is devastated ; the other pursues, to all outward 
 seeming, the even tenor of its prosperous way. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a social order more 
 alien to the ideals of neighbourliness and good citizen- 
 ship, less in harmony with the mind of Christ and 
 the ideals He bade us follow, than one which issues 
 in such segregation, physical, mental, and moral, 
 
 27 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 and, by its distribution of wealth, gives to a certain 
 minority of the nation that superfluity of riches of 
 which He predicated peril for the possessor, while 
 leaving a large part of the population incapable by 
 their circumstances of any full development of 
 personality. 
 
 Il. Tue Present System oF INDUSTRY 
 
 ¢ 93 
 
 In this sytem the “ partners in industry,” if we 
 may use this phrase to describe the association of. 
 Capital, Management and Labour for industrial 
 purposes, occupy positions sharply differentiated the 
 one from the other. With Capital, which supplies 
 the funds necessary for the initiation of the under- 
 taking, and may further contribute to its extension 
 and development by the taking in of new partners 
 or the raising of fresh share capital, lies the planning 
 and direction of the lines of the enterprise, the con- 
 trol of the volume of business, the adoption and 
 maintenance of methods of production, including 
 factory conditions which intimately affect the life, 
 health and morals of the workpeople employed, and 
 the acceptance or rejection of financial risk. In 
 the large private firm or the limited liability com- 
 pany the details of working are mainly in the hands 
 of Management, whose reports and counsels, the out- 
 come of practical experience, tend increasingly to 
 influence the general policy. Labour, the indis- 
 pensable instrument of Capital in the execution of 
 its plans and purposes, has little part in these high 
 matters. Workmen in general are ignorant of the 
 “business position” of the firm which employs 
 
 them ; the financial commitments, perils, prospects 
 28 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 of the concern are quite outside their ken. Such 
 forecasts of its immediate future as they may make 
 depend on the immediate activity of the factory, 
 the question whether orders are for the moment 
 many or few. Should some of them, shrewder or 
 better informed than the rest, suspect that a disaster 
 which will involve them and their mates lies ahead 
 as the fruit of existing policy, there is no recognised 
 means by which they can bring any influence to 
 bear on those responsible for that policy: Their 
 employers may be producing recklessly, or dismissing 
 workpeople as a result of inefficient management, 
 without the workmen having any opportunity of 
 understanding the cause or remedying the position. 
 And if this is the unequal status where Capital is 
 represented by a single employer or firm of employers, 
 the inequality becomes even more striking when one 
 of the parties in industry is the limited liability 
 company. Here is, as nominal employer, a body of 
 shareholders unknown and unknowing, often no 
 better informed as to the financial soundness of the 
 undertaking than the workpeople themselves, and 
 in complete ignorance of the conditions in which, 
 on the productive side, it is carried on; as mediate 
 employer, a Board of Directors representing the 
 Company’s shareholders; as immediate employers, 
 a Managing Director and a staff of salaried servants 
 of the Company whose powers of initiating action 
 or remedying grievances in favour of the workers 
 must obviously be limited, however sincere and 
 enlightened their good-will, by the pressure of the 
 general policy of the Board and the necessity of 
 making profits. 
 se 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 By the ultimate employer—the shareholder—the 
 existence of the individual worker is scarcely dis- 
 cerned. The worker can make himself felt only by 
 corporate action, which takes the form of a strike or 
 the threat of one. As the joint-stock system of 
 industry predominates in the industrial life of the 
 country (and it has already covered practically the — 
 whole field of the great trades), the thin-drawn link 
 of personal, human connection between employer 
 and employed, Capital and Labour, waxes ever more 
 tenuous, until talk of “ partnership” becomes 
 tragically unreal. ‘The interests of the groups are 
 often, it may be, identical; but it is difficult to 
 blame the workman if he does not see this. He 
 has no guarantee that the new policy of reducing 
 personnel or cutting rates is necessary to keep the 
 industry alive, as his employers assure him. ‘Thus 
 is the atmosphere of suspicion bred, and a moral 
 cleavage between the associated groups grows more 
 profound. 
 
 Another fact that cannot be ignored in the unequal 
 position of these groups lies in the unequal effect 
 on their members of good times and bad. Prosperity 
 in the undertaking which brings large increases of 
 fortune to leading shareholders and some growth in 
 comfort and security even to those having a small 
 holding may for a long period affect not at all the 
 financial position of the men and women who draw 
 a bare livelihood from the production of the article 
 for which a great demand has been successfully 
 created. Moreover, when a rise in wages is claimed 
 and gained, it is frequently only after a consider- 
 able struggle and possibly at the cost of a strike and 
 
 30 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 its attendant privations. If the workpeople are 
 unorganised or ill-organised the claim may be 
 rejected; in any case the “lag” is painfully felt. 
 A decline of the industry, on the other hand, has 
 an immediate effect in reduced wages, short time, 
 unemployment or actual dismissal in the case of the 
 workpeople, who see the lives of the heads of the 
 business and their families proceeding tranquilly 
 on accustomed lines while they themselves suffer 
 privations, or even destitution mitigated by unem- 
 ployment benefit or the Poor Law, and look into a 
 future in which their means of livelihood are abso- 
 lutely uncertain. Perhaps the members of the 
 Board or the partners in the firm have prudently 
 “‘ put down ” something or “* drawn in ” somewhere. 
 But their economies—even the economies of the 
 manager with his fixed salary—have not been made 
 in respect of the necessaries for a decent life. Herein 
 lies the sting of the contrast. 
 
 We recognise that the situation as we have 
 described it is modified, and in many of the more 
 skilled trades profoundly modified, by the existence 
 of Trade Union organisation. Where this organisa- 
 tion is effective because it includes, either as indivi- 
 duals or through the medium of federation, the 
 majority of those engaged in all departments of the 
 industry, it can bargain, up to a certain point, on 
 something like equal terms with Capital. It is by 
 their power of collective bargaining that the workers 
 of the great organised trades have succeeded in 
 establishing a more or less uniform standard of 
 hours in industry and, in the several industries, 
 agreed rates of pay. But the organised workers’ 
 
 31 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 position, strong in times of prosperity, weakens as 
 soon as the slump sets in. Corporate funds are 
 necessary for the maintenance of this position; if 
 these are depleted by a protracted period of un- 
 employment or the strain of a trade dispute his de- 
 pendent position becomes quickly manifest. Never- 
 theless, the potential power of organisation is never 
 lost; since it will revive with a renewal of industrial 
 activity it remains even in the worst seasons of 
 depression a force to be reckoned with, however 
 seriously handicapped by imperfect knowledge and 
 
 the hampering pressure of immediate needs. 
 
 III. PrevaLENCE oF WAGES BELOW THE STANDARD 
 oF ADEQUATE LIVING 
 
 It was, strangely, during the period of the Great 
 War that wages were probably more adequate to 
 the needs of life, at least on its physical side, than 
 at any other period of the history of this country. 
 Perhaps the coincidence was not altogether strange, 
 for rapid and efficient production being then a vital 
 matter, the necessity of maintaining the operative 
 at his productive maximum was generally recognised. 
 The Trade Unions wielded special power and influ- 
 ence at such a time, and the shortage of labour gave 
 support to their demands. But the lessons of that 
 stern period are already forgotten or ignored. 
 Real wages in certain important trades have not 
 only fallen to pre-war level and below it, but there 
 is a marked tendency to call for harder work and 
 bigger output coupled with reduced wages and 
 longer hours, even where conditions of trade do not 
 
 32 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 compel drastic reductions. ‘There are not wanting 
 voices to urge that the more prosperous industries 
 should reduce their wages to the level of those 
 prevailing in trades on which the slump has borne 
 most heavily, thus making the lowest wage the 
 national norm; others there are that cry for the 
 abolition of the Trade Boards system, which in a 
 number of occupations is for some two millions of 
 women and unorganised men the sole effective barrier 
 against a return to conditions of sweating. Where 
 Trade Board protection does not exist, and there is 
 no effective organisation, the wages of women are 
 to-day once more found at their old level in pre-war 
 value of about 125. a week. This fact remains 
 ungrasped by the ordinary citizen and reader of 
 newspapers, because the nominal wage reaches a 
 much higher figure, and it seldom occurs to him to 
 correlate that figure with the increased cost of 
 living. 
 
 But, apart from the special position of women in 
 industry, always more precarious economically than 
 that of men, we have had to consider the larger 
 problem of those workers and their families who live 
 habitually below the poverty line, or so little above it 
 that they are always ready, at the stroke of sickness 
 or unemployment, to fall on the other side. Here is 
 a substantial proportion! of the population which, 
 
 1 Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, in his book on Poverty, calculates that 
 the first of these classes constitutes 9°91 per cent., and the second 
 21°5 percent. ‘This was a pre-war estimate, and post-war changes 
 call for a re-examination of the data on which these figures were 
 based before they can be accepted as more than approximately 
 correct at the present time. 
 
 D 33 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 because it cannot, at the present rate of remunera- 
 tion of its bread-winners, be adequately housed and 
 fed and clothed and must remain without means of 
 satisfying any of the higher needs, tastes and aspira- 
 tions of human nature, is bound: to lead a stunted 
 existence. Neither body nor mind can develop 
 freely in such circumstances, so both suffer from _ 
 arrested development. In childhood, educational 
 
 opportunity remains ungrasped ; in adolescence and 
 manhood, such energy as exists is expended in 
 grasping at the nearest job that will sustain life or 
 keep a roof above the heads of wife and children. 
 No time can be spent in the learning of a skilled 
 trade or following the bent of any natural gift which, 
 trained and cultivated, might lift the possessor out 
 of the morass of his surroundings. The national 
 as well as the human and spiritual waste among these 
 two classes is not to be measured in words or figures. 
 Where the employment is casual, there is added to 
 inadequate means of living that downward pressure 
 upon character which seems inseparable from irregu- 
 larity and uncertainty of occupation. ‘Throughout 
 both groups family life is constantly dislocated and 
 the upbringing of children imperilled and marred by 
 the absence from home of the wife and mother com- 
 
 pelled to engage in wage-earning in order to keep 
 her household going. Where it is the solitary woman 
 or girl whose wage is below or barely at the subsist- 
 
 ence level, the moral danger is acute. And the 
 
 boon of continued education which might open a 
 
 way of escape for the children is as far as the law 
 permits repudiated by parents, whose first pre- 
 
 occupation must be to provide their boy or girl with 
 
 34 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 food; to these, anything that delays the transforma- 
 tion of the dependent child into the wage-earner 
 seems no blessing but acurse. Yet such early wage- 
 earning it is which ensures for these children a 
 repetition of their parents’ existence. They get 
 no glimpse of the fields of liberty; their idea of 
 pleasure is in some physical reaction from the sordid- 
 ness of life as they know it. 
 
 We do not ignore—on the contrary, we recog- 
 nise gratefully and hopefully —the increasing 
 attempt of the community to meet and mitigate 
 the evil effects of inadequate wages. National and 
 municipal effort to preserve the child life of the 
 country, to create educational opportunity, to pro- 
 vide healthy outlets for youthful spirits and to 
 satisfy the craving after natural pleasure of young 
 creatures brought up in crowded or insanitary homes, 
 are among the most cheering social experiments of 
 our time. ‘They will be referred to in their proper 
 place on a later page of this Report. But they 
 touch at best only a small proportion of the lives 
 affected and leave the problem of the family which 
 cannot find means to become self-supporting un- 
 solved. - There is even a danger lest they should, by 
 masking the evil of inadequate means of living, cause 
 forgetfulness of its existence, and persuade us to 
 accept partial palliation of a deep-seated national 
 malady when we ought to be seeking its radical cure 
 with passionate eagerness. 
 
 IV. Women In INpDusTRY 
 
 While the foregoing general observations apply to 
 all persons industrially employed it is necessary to 
 35 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 refer briefly to the position of women in industry, 
 which in some respects differs and must continue to 
 differ from that of their men fellow-workers. A 
 large majority of women in factories and workshops 
 are under twenty-five, and if we extend the age to 
 thirty, the proportion of women workers included 
 in that age-group may be said to constitute the main 
 body in this division of the “industrial army.” By 
 far the greater number, then, of our women workers 
 are young and unmarried. At the other end of the 
 scale is a small group of women who have returned, 
 in middle or later life, to wage-earning through the 
 loss or disablement or unemployment of their 
 husbands: only in the textile trade do we find 
 women continue steadily throughout active life in 
 the trade which they entered as young girls. ‘These 
 simple facts account at once for much of the special 
 instability in women’s industrial position to which 
 reference has already been made. ‘The great mass of 
 girl workers enter a trade with no expectation or 
 desire of remaining in it permanently: it is to them 
 a means of livelihood until such time as marriage 
 and a home of their own shall claim them. Con- 
 sequently, they are not prepared, even were entry 
 into the skilled ranks of their chosen industry offered 
 to them, to spend long years in the position of an 
 apprentice: they look rather for processes easily 
 learned, for quick promotion to piece-work, and a 
 rapid rise in earnings. Employers, on their side, have 
 to deal with the discouragement and, in many cases, 
 the determined opposition of the organised men to 
 admission of women into the skilled ranks, and they 
 
 are not disposed to offer any serious resistance to the 
 36 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 men’s attitude, seeing how little they can count on 
 retaining the services of the women for more than a 
 few years. ‘These considerations seriously handicap 
 the young woman in the labour market; and, as 
 they indispose her to take her industrial career very 
 seriously, they react upon her as a potential trade 
 unionist. ‘The enthusiasm of fellowship created by 
 the national tasks imposed upon women during the 
 Great War having died down, we are again in the 
 presence of the old difficulty of persuading women 
 workers, so long as things are going tolerably well 
 with them, that there is any need for organisation 
 on their part and, when things go ill, of inducing 
 them to remain in the organisation to which they 
 belong. The smaller group of older women have 
 their own special disabilities—first, of poverty 
 creating a desperate need to earn, at all costs, some- 
 thing, and then of a number of domestic ties and 
 duties which seriously impair their efficiency as 
 industrial producers, reacting on health and time- 
 keeping, and preventing concentration on their job. 
 These are the workers who, where they are not 
 protected by the saving minimum rate of the Trade 
 Board, help to pull down, and keep down, wages to 
 a disastrously low level. ‘The strain of the attempt 
 to double the domestic and industrial parts is seen 
 most strikingly in their case; but there are few 
 women and girls of any age who do not suffer from 
 it in some degree, often to such an extent as makes 
 equal competition between them and their brothers a 
 matter of rare occurrence. Direct competition in 
 the same processes between men and women is, 
 however, much less common than is generally sup- 
 37 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 posed. As a rule, the two sexes find their way into 
 specific occupations, sometimes because the occupa- 
 tion is clearly more suitable for one sex than the 
 other, sometimes at the bidding of mere custom 
 and convention. There are light, interesting, skilled 
 trades from which women are debarred by the 
 concerted action of the men’s organisations; there 
 is heavy and dirty work, which they constantly 
 undertake without remonstrance on their own part, 
 
 or on that of the men in the trade, because it has — 
 long been the habit to employ female labour in this 
 particular kind of operation, because it is unskilled 
 and poorly paid. 
 
 It is held by some who are keenly anxious to see 
 women’s position in industry raised and stabilised, 
 that this desirable end would be quickly reached if 
 State protection of women workers did not include 
 certain restrictions on their hours of labour, such 
 as the prohibition of night work and Sunday work. 
 Comparative study in the wide field of international 
 industry does not confirm this view. On the con- 
 trary, it is found that in those countries where 
 women are employed during all hours of the twenty- 
 four and on all days of the week, their position is 
 actually more depressed and unsatisfactory than that 
 of British women workers, with a markedly greater 
 difference between the standing of the two sexes. 
 Only after the efforts of the pioneers in factory 
 legislation had secured for women workers in this 
 country a standard of decent conditions, freedom 
 from excessive overwork, and a guaranteed minimum 
 of rest and leisure, did women show any desire or 
 
 make any movement to associate themselves together 
 38 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 for the improvement of their industrial position. It 
 is hardly too much to say that Trade Unionism in 
 the case of women, in so far as it is a living power, 
 has been built up on the foundation rock of the 
 Factory Acts. 
 
 Those Acts themselves doubtless need adjusting 
 to modern needs and the changed custom of a swiftly 
 moving industrial development. Public opinion, 
 of which they are the outcome, can easily reform 
 and improve them if it will. It is also free to insist 
 on the principle that, where the same work is done, 
 there, by whomsoever it is performed, the payment 
 shall be the same also. Were this principle of simple 
 justice made the test to which questions of the differ- 
 ing wages of men and women workers must be sub- 
 mitted, many problems of industrial co-employment 
 would be solved and much bitterness avoided. ‘The 
 question is one for proof; and if the experiment is 
 to be a fair one, those who make the assay must rid 
 themselves on the one hand of the presupposition 
 that a woman’s work is necessarily inferior to that 
 of a man in fields on which it is possible for the two 
 to compete on even terms, and, on the other, of 
 the idea that confident assertion of a capacity for 
 equal production will go any way towards establish- 
 ing their case. 
 
 V. Younc PEorue In INDUSTRY 
 
 We have happily no longer to deal, in this connec- 
 tion, with the employment of the child of elementary 
 school age in factory or workshop. Up to fourteen 
 the boy or girlis, by law, excluded from employment 
 
 39 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 in any industrial undertaking.1 The problem of 
 the boys and girls between fourteen and eighteen 
 is, however, one of pressing importance, from the 
 economic, civic and moral point of view. ‘There is 
 no doubt that the large number of young persons 
 entering the labour market every year, as their brief 
 school-time comes to an end, constitutes a serious 
 factor in the sum of unemployment of adult men 
 and women. ‘There are still too many industries in 
 the country which are run on juvenile labour, in 
 places where the standard of conditions is low, and 
 the surroundings neither wholesome nor desirable 
 for growing youth. A frank adoption of the policy 
 of raising the school age linked with a system of 
 maintenance grants would bring immediate sensible 
 relief where the pressure of unemployment is most 
 cruel among the lowest ranks of labour. It would 
 also preserve the nation from rearing a generation 
 of young men and women made familiar with all the 
 temptations and evil influences of unemployment 
 before they have learned, by experience, their first 
 lessons in the dignity and joy of work. 
 
 There is one other feature in the position of the 
 young industrial worker of the present day which 
 calls for serious consideration. ‘This is the decay of 
 apprenticeship—at its best a valuable school for 
 mental and moral as well as physical training—and 
 its replacement by a vague learnership during which 
 little care is taken to impart any real craft-lore. 
 The peril to an industrial country already danger-— 
 
 1 Children of twelve and upwards may still be employed under . 
 local by-law in a number of unregulated occupations before and ~ 
 after school hours. 
 
 40 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 ously depleted of its stock of skilled men, as well as 
 the disadvantage to the learners themselves which 
 such a change involves, is plain for all to see. 
 
 VI. SpecraL ConpDITIONS AFFECTING AGRICULTURE 
 AND THE RurRAL COMMUNITY 
 
 While some of the wider general considerations on 
 the position of the industrial worker apply mutatis 
 mutandis to that of the agricultural labourer, acute 
 differences between the two are not lacking. 
 Economically, the land-worker is in a worse because 
 a weaker situation. His direct employer is usually a 
 tenant farmer, responsible, in the tripartite organisa- 
 tion of English agriculture, to the owner of the land 
 for which he pays rent, and dependent for his own 
 livelihood and profits on products exposed to un- 
 controllable fluctuation in quality and quantity and 
 disposed of in markets ruled by the effects of natural 
 seasons on the other side of the world. Much 
 agricultural employment depends on weather ; when 
 this is unfavourable to open-air work, the labourer 
 may—unless he be a horsekeeper or a stockman—find 
 himself on short time or temporarily unemployed. 
 The level of his earnings was always low; even in 
 1914 the average wages of the agricultural labourer, 
 in the majority of cases a married man with a family, 
 were considerably below the total of pay and allow- 
 ances received by the trained private soldier, usually 
 young and unmarried. In March 1923 the total 
 emoluments of the soldier had risen to {2 95. 3d., 
 while the average wages of the agricultural labourer 
 stood at {1 7s. 11d., representing in proportion to 
 
 41 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the cost of living a serious decline in real wages on 
 his pre-war 185.1 Only during the brief existence of 
 the Agricultural Wages Board had he any security for 
 the continued adjustment of his rate of wages to the 
 cost of the necessities of life, and particularly of 
 food, the principal item of his household budget. 
 In respect of rent he has the advantage of the town 
 worker, though the average cottage rent must be 
 regarded mainly as the pendant to a weekly wage 
 fixed at sucha figure that the payment of an economic 
 rent for a good family cottage would have left the 
 labourer in most instances with insufficient means 
 for actual subsistence. He has, too, in many cases 
 (not in all) some garden ground which provides him 
 with the means of growing additional food. Where 
 in addition allotments can be had at a low rent, the 
 food produced forms a large item in housekeeping. 
 (A great extension of the allotment system took 
 place during the war period and has happily been 
 maintained, to the incalculable benefit of many town 
 dwellers as well as that of the rural labourer.) 
 In certain localities the traditional “‘ allowances ” 
 in kind may still be found, but they «have 
 become exceptional and tend to disappear alto- 
 gether. ‘The cheapness of his dwelling is frequently 
 
 1 Report of Committee on Pay, etc., of State Servants, July 
 1923. ‘This “ pre-war 18s.,”’ it should be remembered, represented 
 the average and not the actual wage of the agricultural labourer. 
 While in certain districts of the North the actual wage rose above 
 18s., over wide areas of the South it fell far below that figure, 
 weekly wages of 135. and 145. being still common up to IgI4. 
 Obviously, in such areas the labourer’s present purchasing power 
 has fallen little if at all; in some of the worst-paid it has been 
 increased. 
 
 42 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 offset by its character as a tied cottage. There is 
 perhaps no feature in the lot of the agricultural 
 labourer which so embarrasses his freedom of life 
 and work, at least after marriage, as the fact that he 
 often lives “‘in the master’s rents,”’ and can change 
 his employer only at the price of losing his home. 
 Yet, with the gradual dying-out of the custom of 
 yearly hirings, his security of tenure is now little 
 greater than that of the industrial man; only in 
 Scotland, where the position of the farm-servant is 
 more fixed and intimate, do the older and more 
 stable conditions to some extent prevail. In 
 England, a cottage home once broken up is not easily 
 re-established, for the shortage of cottages in many 
 agricultural areas is acute, and little building is in 
 progress of which the results will be available for the 
 rural labourer with his reduced rates of pay. So he 
 is forced back, in many cases, upon the older cot- 
 tages which their owners are afraid to replace by 
 new ones and find it not worth their while to repair, 
 and lives in overcrowded and insanitary conditions. 
 Moreover, since he lacks in his village many of the 
 social services which are available to the towns- 
 man, he has fewer avenues of escape from depressing 
 surroundings and far fewer chances of self-improve- 
 ment. It is true that modern long-distance trans- 
 port carries the young people to the nearest town, 
 and Women’s Institutes are bringing fresh interest 
 into the lives of the married women, but these 
 things do not much affect the labourer himself. 
 Outwardly the old threefold social order persists, 
 but its life has left it. ‘The landlord is for the most 
 part a new-comer, without love for the soil or interest 
 43 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 in the people who live on it; the farmer’s past 
 prosperity of the war years and his present struggle 
 with the difficulties of their aftermath have alike 
 served to remove him further from his labourers 
 in sympathy and understanding, making common 
 action increasingly difficult. ‘The labourer, in spite 
 of his continued dependence, occupies a more 
 isolated position than in pre-war days, and his out- 
 look to the future is not encouraging. Small hold-— 
 ings + are few, and fewer still are the rural labourers 
 who obtain one of these coveted prizes. ‘The future 
 of his industry is by every account precarious, and 
 by that of his employer alarming. Only in his right 
 to an old age pension, relieving him from the dread 
 certainty of “‘ ‘The House ”’ or, in favoured cases, the 
 Poor Law allowance of bread and a few shillings a 
 week as the sole refuge of his later years, can he be 
 said to have effected a substantial improvement on 
 his position in the ’eighties. 
 
 It is not easy for him to organise himself, and 
 even as a member of an organisation he finds cor- 
 porate action a difficult business, though modern 
 means of cheap locomotion are reducing the diffi- 
 culty. He is hampered, intellectually, by an educa-- 
 tion which ceased at.an earlier age and was in general 
 less intelligent than the townsman’s ; and his circum- 
 stances make him far more dependent, politically and 
 economically, on the good-will of the employer who 
 is also his landlord. For years he accepted passively 
 the stereotyped disabilities of his lot; after the 
 
 1 The expression “small holdings” is here used in the strictly 
 technical sense of statutory holdings created under the Small 
 Holdings Acts. 
 
 44 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 movement initiated by Joseph Arch died down, there 
 was long quiescence in the ranks of agricultural 
 labour. But the ranks are astir now, and with a 
 new spirit, the spirit of revolt brought into them 
 by the young men returned from trenches in France 
 and camps in Mesopotamia. It is a singularly bitter 
 and impatient spirit, finding grounds for its bitter- 
 ness and impatience in the sudden reversal of 
 agricultural policy which has stripped the labourer 
 of the status he was in process of acquiring under the 
 Agricultural Wages Board, and so reduced his 
 average weekly income that he hovers constantly on 
 the verge of destitution. 
 
 Organised Christianity, as represented by the 
 Church of England in our rural parishes, showed . 
 itself for long singularly insensible to the needs and 
 disabilities of the great scattered army of workers on 
 the land. Yet here was no segregation; the plight 
 of the village labourer was plain to see, at least to 
 the neighbour dwelling beside him, and might 
 well have awakened a championship like that of 
 “S. G. O.’? in the dark days of the mid-nineteenth 
 century. At this moment there is no class whose 
 position constitutes a greater reproach to our failure 
 to apply Christian principles in the conduct of 
 industrial life. 
 
 VII. Tue Power CONFERRED ON SOME PERSONS 
 OVER THE LIFE oF OTHERS 
 
 This, in our industrial system, is a problem full 
 
 1 Rev. Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne (1808-1889), a well- 
 known writer in The Times over the initials “$.G.O.” 
 
 45 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of serious implication. We have seen that the whole 
 direction of industry—the nature of its products, 
 its methods of production, the domestic organisa- 
 tion of the places in which production is carried on 
 —is in the hands of comparatively few persons, 
 although these stand in many instances for a com- 
 paratively large group who take no share in the 
 enterprise beyond lending it their money at interest. 
 Add to this the mechanical character of nearly all 
 modern industry, tending, as it does, to the obscura- _ 
 tion and depression of the human element, and it will 
 be realised how small is the opportunity for self- 
 expression in the contemporary factory. It is the 
 desire for self-expression which, as much as the 
 ambition to take a share in the control of industry, 
 increasingly prompts the demand for “ workers’ 
 control’? or share in management. ‘The dictatorial 
 manager, the unjust or bullying foreman, may by his 
 conduct rouse this desire in quarters where it has 
 been dormant, or render it violent where it has 
 previously found peaceable utterance; but it exists 
 independently of them, in work-places where the 
 wheels of organisation run smoothly. Men and 
 women have become conscious of themselves in 
 conditions which they had no part in setting up and 
 are unable to modify. Changes in the factory, when 
 they occur, may be welcome or unwelcome; in any 
 case, the change is not of their choosing. ‘The power 
 of discharge, with its tremendous issues for their lives, 
 lies in the hand of one man, and against it there is 
 no appeal. As complete is the power of another 
 man to determine a career by the assignment of a 
 job, to give the capable lad his chance or refuse it. 
 46 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 VIII. UnemproymMentT 
 
 The evils of unemployment are with us in a form 
 so impressive and instructive that it would be waste 
 of time to enlarge upon them. ‘True, in the present 
 crisis we have not had to face the horrors of sheer 
 destitution as in the days of lesser calamity before 
 the Great War; so much at least our system of 
 Unemployed Insurance has wrought of good. But 
 unemployment benefit, miscalled the “ dole,”’ while 
 it prevents to some extent the physical breakdown 
 of the worker, and preserves him from the misery of 
 becoming a helpless spectator of physical suffering in 
 those dependent on him, cannot deliver him from 
 the strain of anxiety, the sickness of hope deferred 
 and again disappointed, the growing mood of 
 despair; nor yet from the loss of skill unused, the 
 gradual deterioration of energy, or that moral 
 degradation of the non-worker which haunts the 
 better man like a nightmare, and is too easily accepted 
 by the worse. ‘The manufacture of unemployables 
 out of the unemployed is a product of which a great 
 industrial nation may well stand in fear, while to 
 the Christian it can hardly seem less than acquies- 
 cence in the murder of a brother’s soul. When the 
 unemployed are the young, newly dismissed from 
 school, and these are being rendered by compulsory 
 idleness unfit for work before they have taken the 
 workman’s tools in hand, the responsibility of the 
 nation and of the Church seems even greater and 
 more disquieting. 
 
 Two special points arise in connection with the 
 recurring problem of unemployment, which seem 
 
 47 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 to deserve and demand the close study and con- 
 sideration of Christian people. The first is the 
 doctrine and fact of the continuous reserve. If 
 there must be a margin of labour on which the 
 country may draw at need in times of industrial 
 pressure—if in a society employing all its able- 
 bodied workers at any one time the welfare of the 
 community would suffer—then Christian citizens 
 are bound by the principles of their profession to 
 see that those who “stand and wait” for the 
 advantage of the State and their fellow-citizens 
 suffer neither materially nor morally in the process. 
 It is not easy to carry out this double duty. Merely 
 to maintain a man is not enough; he is to be main- 
 tained in his dignity as a man, and this precludes 
 maintenance in idleness. 
 
 Secondly, we cannot be content with any reduc- 
 tion, however effective, of the hardships of actual 
 unemployment, while the menace of unemployment 
 remains to poison the lives of so vast an army of our 
 brothers and sisters. It is security that the work- 
 man wants—wants more than high wages or shorter 
 hours or “‘ welfare” conditions. Indeed his insis- 
 tent demand for higher wages and a still shorter 
 day is often in part at least the outcome of fear— 
 fear of unemployment for himself or his fellows. 
 
 IX. Tue PREVALENCE OF INDUSTRIAL STRIFE 
 
 When the foregoing considerations are thought- 
 fully considered, the prevalence of industrial strife 
 seems natural and inevitable. 
 
 Between the groups of Capital and Labour is deep 
 
 48 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: INDUSTRY 
 
 suspicion—suspicion by the employer that the work- 
 man is out to get something for nothing, as much 
 money for as little work as possible, till such time 
 as he can snatch control of the system which Capital 
 has built up; suspicion by the worker that he is a 
 subject for exploitation, a mere pawn in the em- 
 ployer’s game, to be lured on to harder toil for the 
 employer’s profit and robbed of the fruits of his 
 effort by rate-cutting or some other more insidious 
 device when the employer’s end is gained. Between 
 them there is also ignorance—the worker’s uneasy 
 ignorance of the policy of the employer and the 
 financial condition of the business; the employer’s 
 ignorance—due rather to lack of imagination than 
 want of knowledge—of the deep-seated terror that 
 moves darkly, sometimes sub-consciously, the minds 
 of men and women for whom the future holds no 
 guarantee of security for the commonest needs. 
 Hence these wars and rumours of wars; strikes and 
 lock-outs and threats of the one and the other; 
 the readiness of the Trade Unionist rank and file to 
 distrust and disown leaders; and the breaking of 
 agreements or putting upon them a disingenuous 
 interpretation. Collective bargaining tempers the 
 ferocity of the conflict, but it does not of itself spell 
 peace. Without trade organisations to conduct the 
 campaign on either side, without associations of 
 employers and unions of employed to call a truce 
 and make a temporary treaty from time to time, the 
 life of the industrial world would be reduced to 
 anarchy. But the spirit of such negotiations, at its 
 best, rarely rises above the level of two opposing 
 armies which, having met and fought stoutly, hence- 
 E 49 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 forward regard each other with respect. Ifa friend- 
 lier feeling prevails in some industries, it is usually 
 because the protagonists on both sides have so close 
 a knowledge of each other’s circumstances that 
 suspicion has little to feed upon, the ignorance which 
 breeds suspicion having been dispelled. 
 
 The end of industrial strife is to be found in | 
 mutual confidence; without confidence there can 
 be no peace. And for confidence to grow and 
 flourish it must be rooted in knowledge and in 
 justice. Otherwise industry remains as we see it 
 to-day : organised in two armed camps, ever on the 
 watch to use the weapons of offence which each 
 force is accumulating against the other, biding its 
 time from one battle to the next—a thing pro- 
 foundly un-Christian in its human relations. 
 
 So 
 
CHAPTER IIT 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 

 
 
 
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CHAPTER III 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE! 
 
 THE operations of finance are indispensable to a 
 modern community. Banking, credit and invest- 
 ment provide the life-blood of the economic system ; 
 and a high standard of integrity, intelligence and 
 efficiency among financiers is essential to the well- 
 being of all. We believe that the existing standard 
 of honourable conduct in this country is high, but 
 not high enough; and we think that there are 
 many respects in which the institutions and methods 
 of finance fall short of what is needed to provide a 
 just and healthy social order. 
 
 We endorse the view that improvement of 
 individual conduct and the winning of all classes 
 of society, financiers included, to a Christian view 
 of their duty to their fellow-men is of more lasting 
 influence and importance than any mere changes in 
 organisation or alteration of laws on the Statute 
 Book; for whatever reforms may be introduced, 
 the spirit of service will remain the indispensable 
 condition for their successful functioning. 
 
 1 We are mainly indebted for this chapter to a special 
 committee consisting of a banker, an accountant, a merchant, 
 a stock-broker, and a civil servant. As it is said in the text, the 
 practical suggestions are intended as material for thought and 
 discussion, not as recommendations to which the Commission is 
 committed. 
 
 53 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 Nevertheless in what follows we desire not so. 
 much to appraise the existing moral code of bankers 
 and financiers, still less to apportion praise or blame 
 among those whom defenders of the present system 
 distinguish as “respectable” and “ disreputable,” 
 but rather to consider in what directions the present 
 system falls short of the Christian principle of social 
 service, and what changes seem necessary and 
 practicable in order to give all persons engaged in 
 the business of finance a wider scope for honourable 
 and disinterested conduct in the service of their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 We propose to deal with the general question of 
 Credit and Finance under four headings: Banking, 
 Commercial Credit, Investment and Joint Stock 
 Enterprise. ‘The gist of our criticism of the present 
 system is that it is an illogical compromise between 
 old traditions and new needs; that notions appro- 
 priate to a simpler state of society still cling to 
 institutions and business arrangements totally differ- 
 ent from the individualistic system of economic 
 relationships out of which they have arisen. Society 
 has blindly attempted to pour new wine into old 
 bottles; or, to vary the metaphor, it has grown up 
 from childhood to adolescence without realising the 
 necessity for a change of clothes. 
 
 1. Banking—A hundred and fifty years ago a 
 man might start a bank as simply and readily as he 
 might to-day set up as a pawnbroker. ‘[o-day the 
 bulk of the banking in this country is in the hands 
 of five large Joint Stock Banks with deposits running 
 into thousands of millions. The modern Joint 
 Stock Bank is to its predecessor what a railway 
 
 54 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 company is to a carrier and his cart. It has become 
 a nation-wide institution of public utility, a vital 
 public service. But in the eyes of the law a bank 
 is still a private concern of the shareholders, who 
 may decide to carry it on or close it down or pursue 
 what policy they like. In practice, of course, the 
 shareholders decide nothing of the kind. They 
 are for the most part mere ciphers, knowing nothing 
 about banking, and performing no function except 
 risking their money and receiving a_ steady 
 dividend. The large Banks could not possibly 
 be allowed to fail. ‘This was demonstrated at the 
 outset of the War, when the Government stood 
 behind the Banks, granted a moratorium, and put 
 the credit of the community behind millions of 
 pounds’ worth of private bills. ‘The bank share- 
 holder is merely a guarantor to the extent of his 
 paid-up and unpaid-up capital and reserves. 
 
 The effective control of the Joint Stock Banks 
 is in the hands of permanent officials and Bank 
 Directors—nominally appointed by the shareholders, 
 but in fact selected by co-option, and largely 
 recruited from the most influential customers of 
 the Banks. The immense power wielded by the 
 Banks rests in the hands of a small oligarchy of 
 wealthy men. These men constitute, in Dr. Walter 
 Leaf’s words, ‘“‘the universal arbiters”? of our 
 national economy. ‘They habitually decide the 
 extremely important questions to whom, to what 
 extent, and for how long, and for what purpose the 
 temporary credit of the community shall be lent. 
 
 If Bank Directors and Bank officials are to remain 
 the “arbiters” of our social economy, they should 
 
 55 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 be recognised by public opinion and the law of the 
 land as public servants responsible, not to a collec- 
 tion of unknown shareholders, but to the com- 
 munity as a whole. ‘This implies either (1) State 
 Banking, or (2) the transformation of Joint Stock 
 Banks into statutory Public Utility Companies, or _ 
 (3) some modified system of semi-autonomous ad- 
 ministration under which Bank Directors would 
 become ‘Trustees for the community without com- 
 plete nationalisation. Our main object, however 
 it may be accomplished, is to make it legally and 
 morally possible and right for upright bankers to 
 place the general welfare of the community first, 
 whenever it conflicts with the claims of powerful 
 private interests, and for the community to give 
 support to bankers should such support be necessary. 
 
 2. Commercial Credit.—It is a commonplace that 
 industry and production depend on markets and 
 that buying and selling in the modern world absorb 
 a growing proportion of the energies of persons 
 employed in business. ‘The technique and mechan- 
 ism of marketing and wholesale commerce are still 
 dominated by the “ carrier’s cart” order of ideas ; 
 they have lagged behind in the growth of large- 
 scale planning and organisation which has taken 
 place in industry. ‘They are too much the happy 
 hunting-ground of the speculator and adventurer, 
 and too little concerned with the service of pro- 
 viding a link between producer and consumer, 
 which is their real object. For this reason we 
 regard the growth of co-operative marketing, and 
 what the Americans call ‘‘ orderly marketing,” as 
 
 more consonant with the ideal of social service than 
 56 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 the methods of the Chicago “ pit.” Speculation 
 and gambling in futures by amateurs and even by 
 professional operators represents a low stage of 
 economic development, and is destined to give 
 place in our view to a more stable and less waste- 
 ful system of centralised marketing by co-opera- 
 tive societies, public utility concerns and State 
 organisations. 
 
 The instability and uncertainty (inherent in a 
 system of speculative markets) are much accentuated 
 by the elasticity with which under modern con- 
 ditions commercial credit can be manufactured 
 by the Banks. Those who control credit, control 
 speculation; and modern research has shown that 
 the vagaries of speculation are one of the chief 
 influences in bringing about booms and slumps, 
 feverish activity followed by over-production and 
 unemployment, and the disastrous fluctuations of 
 prices which cause so much social injustice and 
 bitterness. We cannot exaggerate the importance 
 we attach to the hopes now held out by leading 
 economists and financial experts, that a scientific 
 control of credit would mitigate these evils. 
 
 3. Investment.—We regard it as a public service 
 to save, so long as the individual’s income is more 
 than sufficient to provide for a civilised standard of 
 living for himself and his family. In return, we 
 think the community should assist the individual 
 to secure a due return for the saving made. 
 The right of inheritance and‘ questions of taxation 
 do not arise here. What we desire to emphasise 1s 
 the necessity of accumulating real savings and the 
 social and economic evil of luxurious expenditure 
 
 57 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 on forms of consumption that do nothing to pro- 
 mote the well-being of the community. It follows 
 that the general level of wages should be sufficiently 
 high to enable every wage-earner to share in the 
 increased prosperity due to such saving. 
 
 The accumulation of savings and the growth and 
 replacement of capital are of such vital importance 
 to the community that a larger measure of financial 
 education and social direction seems necessary to 
 avoid the serious waste and misdirection that now 
 takes place. The ordinary investor is often unqualified 
 to judge of the merits of new issues and ignorant of 
 the uses to which his capital is to be put; and yet 
 he is expected by law to assume all the risks and 
 responsibilities of ownership. It seems highly 
 desirable that the ordinary investor should be more 
 carefully protected from exploitation by the un- 
 scrupulous, and where he cannot afford to take risk 
 should be assisted to make safe investments in co- 
 operation with others by means of sound trust 
 companies. There is no objection to individual 
 enterprise in the proper place; but obviously the 
 greater part of the economic system is and must 
 be in the domain of corporate enterprise. But 
 corporate enterprise is at present in a transitional 
 stage, and is still dominated by traditions associated 
 with forms of private enterprise which are now 
 obsolete. 
 
 4. ‘foint Stock Enterprise and the Company Laws.— 
 The notions of private enterprise and private 
 property have been profoundly modified by the 
 invention of limited liability companies, and the 
 
 growth of property in shares and other securities. 
 58 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 Until the middle of the nineteenth century, indeed, 
 public companies were regarded as the antithesis 
 of private enterprise, since they were run by salaried 
 officials on behalf of the owners. Salaried officials 
 were thought likely to be less efficient and trust- 
 worthy than a man looking after his own private 
 affairs. Nowadays this contention has lost its force ; 
 it is a criticism more often applied to State and 
 municipal officials than to company officials. When 
 we discuss “private enterprise,” therefore, as 
 popularly understood, we should more strictly speak 
 of the enterprise of salaried officials employed by 
 public companies belonging to private individuals. 
 A ‘‘share” in a railway company is clearly a 
 different kind of private property from a horse and 
 cart. A man can do what he likes with his horse 
 and cart, but though he can sell or pledge his share 
 as he likes, he cannot do what he likes with any 
 portion of the railway. What then does the 
 “‘ property” of a shareholder amount to? What 
 degree of control can he exercise over the manage- 
 ment of the business of which he is a fractional and 
 often a purely temporary owner? Are his responsi- 
 bilities and duties commensurate with his rewards? 
 Does he as a shareholder or proprietor perform any 
 useful function, which might not be equally well 
 performed by a debenture-holder or other kind of 
 investor? Does the community as a whole derive 
 sufficient benefits in return for the privilege of 
 limited liability and the right to receive what 
 appear to be in many cases excessive profits, which 
 it thus confers on shareholders? Lastly, should 
 important communal services be run primarily in 
 59 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the interests of the shareholders or in the interests 
 of the general public? Or can it be maintained 
 that these interests are identical? 
 
 It is questions of this sort (among others) which 
 are raised by those critics who condemn the “ capital- 
 ist system.” Admittedly it is not easy to find an 
 answer to them all. But it is worth remembering 
 that, as Lord Milner says in his recent book, Questions 
 of the Hour, “ Joint Stock Enterprise is not neces- 
 sarily the last word in industrial organisation.” It 
 is not necessary to be an extreme socialist to wish 
 to see the existing Company Laws brought into 
 greater harmony with the social conscience of 
 to-day. 
 
 As regards the shareholder’s responsibilities, it is 
 often held that he is morally responsible for the 
 wages and conditions of work of the employees in 
 the business. ‘This is no doubt true and valuable 
 doctrine. But how often can she effectively dis- 
 charge this duty? Before he can exercise even his 
 single vote he must have knowledge of the facts. 
 But in practice what chance has the average in- 
 vestor of knowing the relevant facts? Actually, 
 although he is a part proprietor, he has no more 
 right under the Company Laws to investigate the 
 detailed operations of the business he partly owns 
 than any member of the public unless and until a 
 majority of the shareholders so resolves (Section I1o, 
 Companies Act, 1908). 
 
 But if he is morally responsible as shareholder, 
 is he not also responsible as a citizen and voter for 
 seeing that the law is so amended that the facts 
 may be ventilated and ease proper remedies applied ? 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 In principle, therefore, the modern conscience 
 demands the enforcement by law of a greater 
 publicity as to the conduct of joint stock com- 
 panies, in the belief that a healthy public opinion 
 would check many abuses and injustices. 
 
 But the objection to the present system goes 
 deeper. Both those who attack and those who 
 defend private property and the capitalist system 
 are apt to miss the distinction between the thousands 
 of small shareholders who own the bulk of the 
 capital in industrial concerns, and the Directors 
 (who may or may not be large shareholders) who 
 control these vast aggregations of other people’s 
 capital. It is the control of capital by a few men 
 rather than the ownership of capital by all and 
 sundry which constitutes the chief ground of 
 criticism of the present system. It is undeniable 
 that a comparatively small number of men, armed 
 with all the vast resources which modern invest- 
 ment gives them, possess a power over the con- 
 ditions of life of their fellow-countrymen quite 
 unparalleled in any previous epoch. It may be 
 and probably is inevitable that the actual conduct 
 of modern industry should get into the hands of a 
 few men. But the all-important question is the 
 manner in which they exercise their power, and to 
 whom they are held responsible for their conduct. 
 
 It is here that the present system seems anomalous 
 and contrary to sound social principles. Directors 
 are supposed to be the servants of the shareholders, 
 looking after their private affairs as a trustee or 
 steward looks after a private estate. But in fact, 
 
 as we have seen, the shareholder is often no more 
 61 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 than a cipher, who buys and sells “shares” as 
 
 light-heartedly as he buys and sells bonds or Consols. 
 And the business which the Directors are actually 
 looking after may be in fact the very life-blood of 
 the community. Take the Joint Stock Banks, for 
 example. Are they, or is the Bank of England, a 
 private concern of a haphazard collection of un- 
 known shareholders? Or are they, as Dr. Walter 
 Leaf described them, ‘‘ the universal arbiters of the 
 world’s economy”? ‘They are both perhaps; but — 
 if so, is there not a conflict of moral obligation 
 involved? If the existing captains of finance and 
 industry are to remain as they are to-day, “ the 
 arbiters” of our social economy, should they not 
 be recognised by public opinion and by the law 
 of the land as public servants entrusted with some 
 of the most essential functions of government? 
 This may sound like a plea for nationalisation of 
 the Banks and key-industries. But there is all 
 the difference in practice between the Government 
 taking over industries and Banks, and those who 
 have control of Banks undertaking part of the duties 
 and responsibilities of Government. It is the 
 second alternative which constitutes the vital issue 
 of the day. The leaders of industry and finance 
 should be recognised as public servants, and en- 
 trusted by law with the rights and duties corre- 
 sponding to that high station. ‘This is a plea for 
 reorganisation of industry rather than national- 
 isation as ordinarily understood; for the elimina- 
 tion of the irresponsible shareholder by statutory 
 provisions; and for the supremacy of the public 
 
 welfare. 
 62 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 It may be asked, “‘ How would you apply these 
 principles in practice?”’ On this it is impossible 
 to dogmatise; but at the risk of raising contro- 
 versial issues, a few possibilities may be noted for 
 the purpose of stimulating thought. 
 
 1. Shareholders in some industries might be 
 bought out by the State and given guaranteed 
 Government stock, while the State undertook full 
 or partial responsibility for administration. Some- 
 thing like this was recommended in the Sankey 
 Report concerning mines. 
 
 2. In cases where it is undesirable that the State 
 should be directly responsible for the administra- 
 tion, it might become a shareholder itself. This is 
 the plan adopted in the case of the Anglo-Persian 
 Oil Company and the Suez Canal Company, the 
 British Government holding part of the shares and 
 appointing one or more Directors. 
 
 3. In cases where a powerful combine already 
 exists or where it might be advantageous to create 
 one in the interests of efficiency and sound organ- 
 isation, legislation might be passed by which such 
 a trust would be converted into a public utility 
 company (with a fixed or limited rate of interest 
 for the shareholders), and responsibility for ad- 
 ministering the Trust on behalf of the community 
 might be directly vested in a Board of Trustees 
 appointed for a term of years and independent of 
 the political Government of the day. The State 
 might perhaps participate in the profits as a deferred 
 shareholder (this suggestion is borrowed from Lord 
 Milner’s book referred to above). Such a plan 
 might prove the best ee of dealing with the 
 
 3 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 Bank of England and the Joint Stock Banks, and 
 
 certain staple trades and industries concerned with 
 the necessaries of life (building materials, food- 
 stuffs, textiles, electricity, etc.). The latter case 
 presents the possibility of including representatives 
 of the workers. 
 
 4. The State might extend the principle of . 
 guaranteeing private enterprise against risks as 
 under the Trade Facilities Act, and in return 
 might demand limitation of profits and some voice | 
 in control either by the appointment of a public 
 Director or by means of public inspection and 
 audit. 
 
 5. In any general reform of the Company Laws 
 attempts might be made: 
 
 (a) To give the shareholders greater security, 
 smaller profits and less responsibility in all 
 companies which are performing a vital 
 service to the community. 
 
 (b) To place a more direct responsibility on the 
 officials of the company for the conduct of 
 the business in the best interests of the 
 community. 
 
 (c) To secure greater publicity as to costs and 
 profits and the welfare of the employees, 
 together with wider power of public in- 
 spection and audit. It is worth considering 
 whether chartered accountants and auditors 
 should not be given further statutory rights 
 and duties as trustees of the public interests. 
 
 (d) To ensure better co-ordination and financial 
 stability by encouraging companies to co- 
 
 64 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: FINANCE 
 
 operate and combine where competition 
 is recognised to be wasteful and anti-social. 
 There should be a Trust Law creating a 
 new form of public company. 
 
 (e) To provide for a large participation by the 
 workers in the profits and the administra- 
 tion of industry. (This question lies out- 
 side the scope of this chapter.) 
 
 To conclude with a brief summary : 
 
 1. Property in shares is more often than not 
 divorced from the function of management and 
 from personal responsibility for the use made of 
 the property. 
 
 2. The risk borne by shareholders in trusts and 
 strong companies is not great; but it is just these 
 that pay the largest dividends. This is contrary 
 to justice and public policy. 
 
 3. The element of speculation and gambling 
 enters too largely into shareholding, where compe- 
 tition is excessive. It would be better where 
 possible to substitute combination or co-operation, 
 and to give investors a safe instead of a speculative 
 field for investment by means of a Government 
 guarantee or statutory monopoly. 
 
 4. Captains of industry should be _ primarily 
 responsible to the community rather than to those 
 who provide them with funds. ‘Those who serve 
 should hire capital instead of capital hiring those 
 who serve. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER IV 
 -PRESENT CONDITIONS: COMMERCE 
 

 
CHAPTER IV 
 PRESENT CONDITIONS: COMMERCE 
 
 Inpustry and commerce may be roughly dis- 
 tinguished according to the functions which they 
 perform. The characteristic of industry is the 
 transformation of one material into another. The 
 essence of commercial activity is the marketing of 
 materials. ‘he two are often combined in the 
 same enterprise, particularly in trades where large 
 combinations exist; and of course every industrial 
 enterprise has its commercial side. The profits of 
 industry may be said to depend on the difference 
 between cost of production and the realised price ; 
 commercial profits depend on the difference between 
 purchase price and sale price. In addition there are 
 many persons engaged in commerce who are re- 
 munerated by commissions, fees and brokerages. 
 
 Both commercial profits and commissions repre- 
 sent in general a necessary and legitimate remunera- 
 tion for services rendered to producers and con- 
 sumers. The trader buys in bulk, carries stocks, 
 takes the risk of the market, and distributes the 
 goods as required at times and in places suited to 
 the convenience of retail buyers or the ultimate 
 consumer. He thus relieves the producer of work, 
 anxiety and financial risk, and by buying in antici- 
 pation of the consumer’s demand enables industry 
 
 69 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 to function more regularly and smoothly. His 
 service to the consumer consists in catering for his 
 needs, anticipating his demands, and carrying stocks 
 of varying types and qualities from which he can 
 make his choice. To the producer he represents 
 the demands of many consumers; to the consumer 
 he offers the supply of many producers. 
 
 The sphere of operations of the merchant or 
 trader is the market—or rather, since physical 
 markets are not found in all trades, it is better to 
 say “‘ marketing.” It is hardly possible to exagger- — 
 ate the importance of the many different problems 
 which arise in connection with this function of 
 marketing. No study of industrial problems or 
 of the relations of employers and employed can 
 afford to ignore the extent to which industry is 
 dependent on commerce. A collapse of markets, 
 even a temporary lack of confidence amongst traders, 
 means the stagnation of industry. Since this is so, 
 it may well prove that some of the worst evils of 
 the industrial system are due rather to disharmonies 
 in the functioning of commerce than to anything 
 in the conduct of industry as such. 
 
 In addition to their economic importance, the 
 operations of wholesale commerce raise certain 
 moral and social issues. 
 
 1. As regards the goods supplied and the services 
 rendered, the community may be compelled to 
 intervene and either regulate or prohibit a dangerous 
 or anti-social trade; ¢.g. the traffic in arms, the 
 liquor traffic, the drug traffic, the trade in opium 
 and the sale of drink to natives. Even where the 
 community does not intervene, the individual trader 
 
 7° 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS: COMMERCE 
 
 can hardly evade a certain moral obligation in 
 connection with such traffic. 
 
 2. The current standards of commercial morality 
 vary much at different times in different places and 
 in different trades. Though integrity in business 
 has an economic value and raises the credit of the 
 trader, “ honesty is the best policy ” is not axiomatic 
 or universally acted upon. To many men in 
 business the daily conflict between commercial 
 practice and the dictates of the moral code appears 
 a recognised and unavoidable necessity; and the 
 individual trader, in keen competition with rivals, 
 is often powerless against forms of deceit and sharp 
 practice which his fellow-traders accept as customary 
 and excusable. Bribery, secret commissions, short 
 weight, false description and misrepresentation are 
 to be met with in most trades, even where the best 
 firms set their face against anything of the kind. 
 The temptation is greatest where competition is 
 keenest, and there is some truth in the allegation 
 that, at least among the fringe of smaller firms, the 
 most unscrupulous come to the top. 
 
 Much can be done by T'rade Associations to put 
 a stop to such practices and to raise the general 
 level of integrity by laying down standard forms of 
 contract, defining qualities and standardising trade 
 customs. ‘The State can also intervene effectively 
 by legislating with regard to such things as weights 
 and measures, contracts, adulteration, trade-marks, 
 etc. But the best and most respected firms will 
 always be those who are scrupulously fair and honest 
 in their dealings and are ready to subordinate 
 immediate gain to their sense of what is right. 
 
 71 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 Honesty is more often and more successfully pursued 
 as an end in itself than as a sound investment. 
 
 3. Competition is a fundamental feature of com- 
 mercial operations. But equally fundamental is 
 the instinct to build a dyke against competition, 
 both to keep up prices to a paying level and to 
 eliminate as far as possible the risks of loss. ‘This 
 leads to understandings and arrangements among 
 rival firms, boycotting of new-comers and outsiders, 
 and the gradual establishment of a close corporation 
 or monopoly designed to exploit the consumer. 
 Whether these tendencies succeed or not—and we 
 seem to hear more of successful combination in 
 recent times than formerly—it is undeniably true 
 that the aim of most traders is to eliminate com- 
 petitors rather than to encourage more competition. 
 There is thus a fundamental contradiction and 
 incoherence in a system of trade which sets up as 
 its ideal a state of affairs which is contrary to the 
 instincts and strivings of the majority of traders. 
 Nor can a trader be expected on any moral grounds 
 to encourage competition rather than combina- 
 tion; there is no duty to compete. The moral 
 question arises rather in his relations to his customers 
 and to the public. So long as these are not exploited, 
 combination between rival firms seems every bit as 
 moral as competition. 
 
 4. There are many ways of controlling or manipu- 
 lating the market which in various degrees may be 
 regarded as anti-social or morally unsound. Of 
 gambling in futures and most speculation the best 
 that can be said is that where it is based on inside 
 information or intelligent forecast it tends to have 
 
 72 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS : COMMERCE 
 
 a stabilising influence on prices. As regards rings, 
 pools, combines and trusts, no generalisation is 
 possible. ‘They are often beneficial, or at least their 
 advantages may easily counterbalance their dis- 
 advantages. But. modern opinion is inclined to 
 regard some form of public regulation as essential 
 both in the interests of other traders and of the 
 general body of consumers. We think there is a 
 strong moral case for State supervision of com- 
 mercial rings and monopolies; and this policy is 
 sounder and more likely to be successful than any 
 attempt to break them up and to enforce com- 
 petition by statutory enactment. Where the danger 
 of exploitation is great and threatens vital public 
 interests, as, for instance, in the alleged rings among 
 builders’ merchants, public supervision may be 
 insufficient and may have to be superseded by some 
 form of public enterprise. 
 
 5. As regards the rate of remuneration earned 
 by merchants for their services, it is doubtful how 
 far it is generally possible for the individual trader 
 to control the amount of his gains and losses. In 
 times of boom he is often involuntarily a profiteer ; 
 for the raising of prices (and incidentally of his 
 own profits) is the only means he has of checking 
 excessive demands and deciding which customers 
 shall receive the limited supplies available. A great 
 deal of moral indignation was vented on traders 
 during the war and the post-war boom, which in 
 the circumstances they did not always deserve. As 
 so often, it was the system which was at fault, 
 not the individuals, who are mere cogs in the 
 machine. No amount of self-denying philanthropy 
 
 73 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 by merchants can counteract the effects of monetary 
 
 inflation. If the scandal becomes too great, it is 
 right for the public to demand that the State 
 should intervene, but not to abuse individual 
 traders merely on the ground that they are making 
 excessive profits. 
 
 But booms are followed by slumps and big profits 
 one year may be wiped out by heavy losses the 
 next. It is, therefore, right that before the State 
 interferes there should be a clear recognition of the 
 merchant’s function. Under present conditions the 
 function of the merchant is to take risks. Very 
 often the risks are greater than individual traders 
 can be expected to bear. Hence the frequent break- 
 down of the marketing system. If the State is to 
 intervene effectively, it should be in the direction 
 of reducing risks rather than of reducing profits. 
 This it may do partly by pursuing a wise political 
 and financial policy, partly by mobilising State 
 credit for the use and assistance of traders in times 
 of depression. The recent legislation granting 
 credit facilities for the export trader is an example 
 of such beneficial State action. 
 
 The merchant’s reward is no doubt often exces- 
 sive; but his risks and his losses are also great. 
 The remedy is to be found in preventing unneces- 
 sary price fluctuations (inflation and deflation) and 
 in the scientific control and direction of credit. 
 Where the merchant is relieved of risk and becomes 
 a mere agent or distributor, his remuneration tends 
 to be in the nature of a commission or fee and is 
 often fixed by trade custom or by a Trade Associa- 
 tion. In such circumstances commerce loses its 
 
 74 
 
PRESENT CONDITIONS : COMMERCE 
 
 speculative character and approximates rather to a 
 profession governed by recognised rules and rates of 
 remuneration. 
 
 It is likely that as marketing becomes stabilised 
 and organised through the adaptation of collective 
 planning to industries as a whole, this will tend to 
 be the line of future development. The ideal 
 merchant would be a highly skilled professional 
 operator employed for a recognised fee or salary as 
 the servant of a public or semi-public corporation. 
 Commerce would then lose much of its adventurous, 
 gambling spirit, and would in time be transformed 
 into a self-governing public service with a higher 
 code of morality than is possible in a society where 
 speculation and private adventure is still the estab- 
 lished mode of carrying on the business of distributing 
 the world’s goods. 
 
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CHAPTER V 
 HUMAN CHARACTER AND THE SYSTEM 
 

 
CA ARV, 
 
 HUMAN CHARACTER AND THE SYSTEM 
 
 Tue foregoing examination of facts has emphasised 
 those features of social-economic life which shock 
 the conscience of men. That they exist is un- 
 deniable, and that they are lamentable is generally 
 agreed. But the question is often asked, ‘‘ Is not 
 this the necessary and inevitable result of the faulty 
 character of men themselves? What else can be 
 expected when by laziness, by extravagance, by 
 faults of temper, and by vicious indulgences of 
 many kinds people bring want upon themselves, 
 while others by selfish greed, by dishonesty, by 
 cunning devices or by callous pressing of accidental 
 advantages take all they can get? Would not these 
 bring about much the same results under any 
 system? Is not indeed the system just an embodi- 
 ment, both for good and for evil, of these personal 
 characteristics, incapable of being remedied apart 
 from the perfecting of character?” 
 
 There is, of course, much truth in this, but it is 
 too vague a generalisation to be helpful. No clear 
 judgment can be reached by setting human failings 
 in the mass over against social failures in general 
 and assuming that all is accounted for. We need 
 to have regard to the ordinary canons of science 
 concerning cause and effect, and to make some use 
 
 79 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of its methods of measurement, before we can be 
 sure what is the relation between these things. 
 Also, we need to be quite clear as to what we mean 
 by *‘ the system.” ‘This is a convenient term which 
 has taken its place in current speech as standing 
 for practically everything outside the immediate 
 activity of individuals as such. ‘The distinction is 
 obviously very real and of the highest importance. 
 But the word seems to imply a far more consciously 
 devised organisation than actually exists on the one 
 hand, and on the other to cover in its use certain 
 factors which belong neither to individual activity 
 nor to anything that can rightly be called a 
 ‘* system.” 
 
 For all human industry has to be exercised in a 
 world the nature of which is constant and can only 
 produce results which are in accordance with that 
 nature. ‘There are certain economic conditions 
 which have been ascertained as invariable and 
 independent of any system of industry, and which 
 apply to all places and to all times. This, doubtless, 
 is what is meant by those who urge that there is no 
 ‘“‘ Christian economics,” merely economics as such. 
 It would be exceedingly helpful if economists could. 
 set out these constant factors as distinct from those 
 which only operate under certain conditions. The 
 former are probably fewer than is commonly sup- 
 posed, but they are of the highest importance, 
 including such elementary principles as that the 
 natural materials and powers, which man cannot 
 create but only handle and shape, are absolutely 
 necessary for production of all kinds; that labour 
 
 power is evanescent unless maintained by adequate 
 80 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 consumption of food and other things needful; 
 that people who, whether for good or bad reasons, 
 do not themselves share in production must be 
 dependent upon the activities of those who do. 
 None of these things, any more than the working 
 of pure and applied mathematics, can be changed 
 at the desire of the individual or by Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, Municipal By-laws, or resolutions of ‘Trade 
 Unions, Trusts or Chambers of Commerce. 
 
 Other laws, however valid within their own limits, 
 are contingent upon human activities, which might 
 have been different. They take the form: “If 
 in such-and-such circumstances this action is taken, 
 the result will be so-and-so.” It is quite open to 
 men to alter the conditions or to take another 
 action. While land, labour and capital are indis- 
 pensable for any advanced industry whatever, there 
 are many different ways in which they have been 
 owned and used and possibly others which have 
 not yet been tried. We find the same variety of 
 possibility in matters of currency and finance in 
 general. Now it is quite certain that the social 
 effects of these different ways of owning, using and 
 administering the materials and means of industry 
 are themselves different and have good or evil 
 results in human life. But they are what we call 
 “system.” If they have not always been con- 
 sciously devised beforehand, they have been 
 interpreted, modified and confirmed by enactments 
 and legal processes and are in a real sense the choice 
 of the community as distinct from that of the 
 individual. ‘There is a very important meaning in 
 
 the question whether unemployment, inadequate 
 G 8I 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 income, the great disparity of wealth and poverty, 
 and the other deplorable results that have been set 
 out are due to individual failings or to faulty system. 
 
 It is also emphatically a moral question. ‘Vhis is 
 evident both from effects on human life for good or 
 evil, which implies character, and from the possi- 
 bility of alteration by collective action, which implies 
 responsibility. 
 
 But of course there is a great deal of evil result 
 directly attributable to individual conduct which 
 might have been different without any change in 
 the system. Men may be standing idle in the 
 market-place because there really is no work open 
 to them or because they prefer to live on the exer- 
 tions of their wives. A foreman may have to 
 discharge men because the business cannot keep 
 them going, or he may get rid of particular men 
 through spite. Some people get more than they 
 have a right to because they have taken it dis- 
 honestly, and others because the laws themselves 
 are faulty. That is why it is necessary to dis- 
 tinguish between the wrongs that need for their 
 righting a change of heart and those for which a 
 change of method would be sufficient, if such could 
 
 be found. 
 
 I. UNEMPLOYMENT 
 
 The facts concerning unemployment have been 
 collected and analysed by competent investigators 
 and are not disputed. But to what is it to be 
 attributed? It is agreed that personal unfitness 
 is one of the causes, but no social student would 
 differ from Sir William Beveridge when he says: 
 
 82 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 ‘“‘ The limitations on this admission, however, have 
 to be carefully noted. First, the number of the 
 entirely unemployable class, though uncertain, is 
 certainly not very great. Second, the most prac- 
 tical way of improving human character lies often 
 in abolishing industrial or social conditions which 
 induce or pander to the vices of idleness, slovenliness 
 and irresponsibility. Third, no conceivable im- 
 provement in the character of the workmen will 
 eliminate the main factors of unemployment.” } 
 
 It is often easy to point to some fault in an 
 unemployed person which has a direct connection 
 with the fact of that particular man being out of 
 work rather than another who is either free from 
 it or has it in less degree. It is possible to contend 
 that on the whole those who are out of work are 
 less fit for it than those who are employed, though 
 this would undoubtedly lead to innumerable unfair 
 judgments, if applied to individuals indiscriminately. 
 But a great distinction must be made between the 
 cause of unemployment itself and the selection of 
 those who are to be unemployed. If at any given 
 time employers can only use profitably a certain 
 number of men, some of those thrown out might 
 have kept their jobs had they been better qualified, 
 but it would only have been at the expense of others 
 who thereby became relatively but not actually 
 worse. 
 
 We have only to study the tables and charts of 
 unemployment to see that the fluctuations, both 
 in particular trades and in industry generally, could 
 not possibly be explained by corresponding changes 
 
 1 Unemployment, chap. vii. 
 
 83 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 in character either among those who sought or 
 those who offered employment. We have there- 
 fore to turn definitely to causes connected with 
 industry itself. 
 
 Here also there is practical agreement about 
 what are the immediate, if not the ultimate causes 
 of unemployment. We have become familiar with. 
 discussions of cyclical fluctuations, the boom years 
 during which confidence, credit and production 
 expand together, to be followed by the “slump ” 
 years in which they also contract together, and of 
 the “sensitiveness of the market” to events or 
 threatenings in respect of political, international 
 or labour troubles, anticipations of good or bad 
 supply of food and raw materials, variations in 
 foreign exchanges or in the quantity of currency. 
 Apart from the great “ waves”? which with their 
 crests and depressions sweep over the whole of the 
 modern industrial world, we have learnt to recognise 
 regional and sectional causes, such as the influence 
 of the seasons upon many trades, the changes due 
 to new industrial processes or organisations, the 
 variability of demands of fashion and luxury, the 
 effects of business failures and the irregularity of | 
 many specific occupations leading to casual employ- 
 ment. 
 
 It is when we come to the explanations of the 
 deeper underlying causes that agreement fails. 
 Some lay stress upon financial considerations, in- 
 volving currency and credit and alleged failure of 
 the monetary system to correspond with true values 
 of goods or obligations between creditors and 
 debtors. Others are more concerned with the 
 
 84 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 misdirection of business energy resulting from 
 competition and an ignorance on the part of the 
 several directors of industry as to what is being 
 done as a whole. Yet again, others find the root 
 of the trouble in the absence of any regulated 
 connection between investment for producing and 
 expenditure for consuming goods. 
 
 It is not our part to give judgment upon questions 
 which divide technical experts. It is necessary, 
 however, to emphasise the fact that the real matters 
 requiring solution are not points of economic 
 theory which have no interest outside academic 
 circles, and can therefore be left for leisurely solu- 
 tion by those who have ability and taste for these 
 things. On the one hand, what is clamouring for 
 effective remedy is the want, suffering and too often 
 the degradation of large numbers of human beings, 
 together with an unrest and anxiety which go far 
 beyond those included in statistics of the actually 
 unemployed. On the other, the causes of this evil 
 are obviously not to be charged upon the nature 
 of things or the will of God; they are admittedly 
 somewhere within the range of human methods, 
 which means that these methods bear the respon- 
 sibility. If the practical solution depends upon 
 determining which of the rival theories is true or 
 whether they are complementary to each other, the 
 best brains and the ripest experience ought to be 
 charged with the task and given full facilities for 
 Carrying it out. 
 
 It is possible, however, that the way lies not so 
 much through the unravelling of intricacies by 
 specialists as by a reconsideration of the simpler 
 
 85 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 issues from a broadly human point of view. Cer- 
 tainly one or two aspects need emphasis. 
 
 1. The primary reason for work is to provide a 
 home, food, clothing and other goods to meet the 
 needs of the worker and his family. In certain 
 simple conditions the working members of the 
 family can, by applying their labour directly to the 
 natural resources, build their own house, grow 
 their own food, make their own clothes and shape 
 other articles of use. ‘There is no question of being 
 “ out of work”; only of not being able to produce 
 enough by their work. But in developed societies 
 this direct labour for the most part disappears. 
 The elaborate division of labour and exchange of 
 goods has brought with it an enormously increased 
 possibility of satisfying human wants, but, with the 
 exception of a small minority of cases, it does not 
 permit of production for one’s own consumption. 
 The worker must have his place in the system. He 
 can only produce when that condition is fulfilled, 
 for he has no direct access to natural resources. 
 He must exchange his labour for the means of pur- 
 chasing what others produce. ‘That is to say, this 
 division of labour and exchange of goods rests upon - 
 the assumption of social co-operation. Where this 
 fails the system breaks down. 
 
 In our present system the wage-earner, to find 
 such a place, must be wanted by some other person 
 or corporate body who can use his labour at a 
 profit. ‘The needs of the wage-earner have become 
 secondary to the use somebody else can make of 
 him. Yet he himself has no alternative, and it is 
 this that makes his plight desperate when nobody 
 
 86 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 wants him and puts him at a terrible disadvantage 
 in making terms when he is wanted. Somehow 
 the system must be made truly social and cc- 
 operative so as to give to every willing worker an 
 assured place. 
 
 2. It cannot be too clearly pointed out that the 
 periods of ‘‘ over-production ” coincide with those 
 of the greatest want. ‘‘ Over-production”’ does 
 not mean that more has been produced than people 
 need, but more than they can buy. Hence the same 
 thing is sometimes called ‘‘ under-consumption.” 
 The facts are that when all the factors of produc- 
 tion—labour, capital and natural resources—are 
 least used there is the greatest distress for lack of 
 the very things they produce but cannot sell. 
 Builders do not build although many thousands of 
 families are without proper homes. Shoemakers 
 are out of a job although multitudes are out of 
 boots. Mill-hands in Lancashire and Yorkshire 
 stop making cotton and woollen goods although the 
 need of clothing would clear out the stocks and set 
 the mills working if it were, satisfied. Land goes 
 out of cultivation though the workers on the land 
 and the children in the towns need much more 
 food than they get. 
 
 There is here no question of “ the niggardliness 
 of nature” or of ‘‘ over-population.” ‘To speak of 
 these would be intelligible if we had exhausted the 
 labour, skill and knowledge of men, the natural 
 resources and the intermediate means of production 
 which we call “‘ capital,’”’ and still had not enough 
 to go round. That is far from being the real 
 situation. The problem is that, in spite of our 
 
 87 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 enormous powers, something in our way of handling 
 them prevents men from supplying each other’s 
 wants by the exchange of the skill and labour which 
 each can bring to the common service. 
 
 It is, of course, complicated by foreign trade. 
 A considerable part of our home production goes 
 abroad in exchange for food and other things that . 
 different countries produce. This means that a 
 failure in foreign demand for our goods throws 
 those who make them out of work. ‘This, however, 
 is the same problem on a larger scale. In a world 
 period of unemployment the people of all lands 
 suffer for lack of goods which could easily be pro- 
 duced but cannot be sold because they cannot be 
 bought. A further anomaly is that workers for the 
 foreign market are frequently idle while the goods 
 they can make are sorely needed by many thousands 
 at home. 
 
 The ancient riddle of the Sphinx had to be 
 solved on pain of death to those who failed. ‘This 
 is our modern form of it. Its solution may come 
 more directly by asking how to meet human needs 
 than by searching for the flaws in present indirect 
 methods, though of course each may help the other. 
 The Christian principle of co-operation for mutual 
 service seems to be in agreement with the soundest 
 economics. Mere competition to sell has certainly 
 failed to meet life’s needs. 
 
 3. It is said by many that there must be reserves 
 of labour for modern industry in order to meet 
 the times of expansion. This seems to require 
 clearer statement from the point of view of the 
 
 persons whose labour is to be reserved. It clearly 
 88 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 shifts the responsibility for their unemployment 
 when they are not wanted from themselves to the 
 industry that can neither use them nor do without 
 them. Such a reason for their being out of work 
 excludes by its nature any argument about their 
 personal unfitness. Also, if keeping them in reserve 
 means keeping them actually unemployed, whose is 
 the responsibility for their maintenance? A family 
 needs as much house-room, food, clothing and other 
 means for an adequate life when the breadwinner 
 is doing nothing as when he is at work. In the 
 past this responsibility has not been fully faced. 
 The families were not adequately maintained, but 
 suffered all the evils of deterioration in physique, 
 in general effectiveness, in moral fibre and in social 
 relation that we are learning to appreciate in their 
 terrible significance. But besides the degradation 
 of life, the injustice on the one hand, and the bitter- 
 ness on the other, there was an economic reckoning 
 to be paid. We do not really escape the cost by 
 refusing to pay it in a straightforward manner. 
 Society as a whole had to pay what was probably a 
 heavier bill for damages than for keeping these 
 families fit, but it was spread over so many personal 
 aids, organised charities and expenditure through 
 the poor law, health authorities and police that it 
 escaped assessment. 
 
 The principle of ‘individual enterprise’’ has 
 proved inadequate to this responsibility. ‘To insist 
 that each firm should carry a sufficient number of 
 employees to meet all emergencies of expansion 
 would be rejected at once as impracticable. ‘There 
 is no alternative, therefore, to some form of collec- 
 
 89 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 tive provision. A beginning has been made by 
 organisation on the part of the workers and in the 
 present Unemployment Insurance, in which workers, 
 firms and the general public make joint contributions. 
 In spite of many gaps and inadequacies this may 
 eventually be worked out into a satisfactory main- 
 tenance of the unemployed, though there are grave - 
 questions yet to be solved. 
 
 But the deeper question is whether maintenance 
 in unemployment is in any real sense a satisfactory 
 solution, from whatever source that maintenance 
 may come. Is it good for anyone capable of 
 service? Is it sound while there are still human 
 needs to be met? Is it not, in fact, a somewhat 
 drastic criticism of the form of industry that requires 
 it? Such maintenance during the present in- 
 capacity of industry to absorb the unemployed is 
 certainly urgent, but more urgent still is the removal 
 of the need. 
 
 Let us suppose—and it is not an extravagant 
 supposition—that every able worker is normally 
 employed. Would that really interfere with the 
 necessary flexibility of industry? ‘There are surely 
 other means of securing this besides keeping men 
 in idleness. A greater diffusion of leisure during 
 times of less pressure would allow for a margin of 
 extra pressure in periods of stress. Better organ- 
 isation would link up seasonal occupations and 
 increase the mobility of labour from points of less 
 to greater urgency. And if happily we did reach 
 such a condition that the choice had to be made 
 as to what occupations should have first claim upon 
 the workers, it requires no great stretch of the 
 
 go 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 imagination to see such choice operating quite 
 healthily against some that could well be spared. 
 
 II. Waces INADEQUATE FOR LIFE 
 
 In spite of a general raising of the standard of 
 living, nothing has been more surely demonstrated 
 in recent years than the existence of large numbers 
 of the people “* below the poverty line”; that is, 
 with a total income insufficient to afford adequate 
 living, even on the barest calculation. ‘This is quite 
 independent of the use made of the income. ‘That 
 in many cases a change of personal habit would make 
 a much better use of what there is goes without 
 saying, but the salient fact is that the income itself, 
 though spent with absolute wisdom and perfect 
 virtue, is not sufficient for the primary needs, on 
 any reasonable estimate. Every lapse below that 
 standard, every satisfaction of what would be not 
 only legitimate but altogether desirable if the 
 means were there, must be at the cost of these 
 prime necessities. 
 
 It may, however, still be argued that the low wage 
 is itself the result of personal unfitness of some kind, 
 and a number of individual cases might be cited in 
 support of the contention. But this can hardly be 
 maintained in view of the fact that rates of wages 
 are fixed for entire occupations and not from per- 
 sonal considerations. Nor can it seriously be held 
 that all occupations are open to all alike so that 
 workers naturally gravitate to those which give a 
 return commensurate with their character and 
 ability. The lower-paid trades are recruited in the 
 
 gl 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 main from families that have grown up in the con- 
 ditions created by low wages. The children have 
 been handicapped in development from the start. 
 It is a fact well known to all investigators that it is 
 when the children are of school age that families 
 are most likely to be below the poverty line and least 
 able to take advantage of the education given. 
 Even if in spite of this they could get some of the 
 comparatively few scholarships available, the need 
 for their supplementing the family budget at the 
 earliest moment would preclude their taking them. | 
 Choice of occupation is made for them chiefly by 
 circumstance, and once made everything conspires 
 to keep them on that level. What they might have 
 been can never be known until all are given an 
 approximately fair start in life. Enough is known 
 by those with first-hand personal knowledge to 
 make them deplore the terrible waste of potential 
 ability and repudiate the idea that personal worth 
 can be graded according to rates of pay. 
 
 Another contention is that the work itself is not 
 worth more than is paid for it and that industry 
 could not bear a higher rate. The latter is the real 
 point, because the attempt to value kinds of work, 
 as distinct from degrees of quality in the same kind, 
 has been frankly given up. Present methods merely 
 fix the price, and the question is whether that 
 should be settled by the number of workers on the 
 one side and the number of jobs open to them on 
 the other, or whether wages should have a definite 
 relation to human needs. 
 
 It must be emphasised that we are not here 
 speaking of what it would be desirable to give as 
 
 g2 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 wages, if it could be afforded, for increasing the 
 amenities of life for the workers, but of the minimum 
 needful for a healthy and decent life. We are on 
 the bedrock of the moral position and are entitled 
 to say that this is one of the essential ethical con- 
 ditions which industry must fulfil. To put it in 
 another way, we are not speaking of what it might 
 be industrially desirable to pay if human beings 
 could exist on nothing, but of the minimum share 
 that should be paid to workers by employers as 
 wages and by the public, if necessary, in price. 
 
 Neither is it a mere opposition of moral and 
 economic demands. ‘he two work together rather 
 than against each other. 
 
 1. Income below primary needs entails both 
 material and moral damage to the persons con- 
 cerned, which in turn means a charge upon the 
 public purse, as in the case of unemployment, 
 through poor law, public health and other depart- 
 ments, hospitals, charities and unreckonable private 
 aid. It is not only unfair but bad economically 
 that employing firms should receive this indirect 
 subsidy. 
 
 2. If the payment of effective wages really does 
 necessitate a rise in the price of articles produced, 
 it is better for the public to pay directly in this 
 way than by rates and taxes and organised charities. 
 
 3. The obstacles which arise from competition 
 through low wages on the part of other firms at 
 home can be obviated, as experience shows, by 
 Wages Boards, which in some trades have done 
 much to remove the worst evils and have the support 
 of the best employers. Similar competition from 
 
 93 
 
“ 
 
 INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 abroad could readily be dealt with in appropriate 
 ways if there were once a steady and considered 
 policy adopted by the nation. Such action is no 
 more an “interference with private enterprise ”’ 
 than any other action to secure the just fulfilment 
 of moral obligations. International action is also 
 beginning to be practicable, and will make home. 
 administration more effective. 
 
 4. As a matter of experience, it has been found 
 that wages which fall below a reasonable subsistence 
 level do not make for less costly production. On 
 the contrary, the raising of such wages tends to 
 improve both the quantity and quality of the 
 output, so that the labour cost in each article is 
 less proportionately than before. Many employers 
 have followed this policy without waiting for regula- 
 tions of general application, and have declared it 
 to be “‘ not philanthropy but sound business.” In 
 fact, some have carried the practice far beyond what 
 the present argument requires, with good economic 
 effect. ‘This does not obviate the necessity of 
 having a sound public policy for removing the evil; 
 it does show that good employers need not always 
 wait for the laggards to be constrained. A good © 
 understanding with the wage-earners, whereby they 
 reciprocate, is also necessary. 
 
 Ill. Tue Distrisution or WEALTH 
 
 So far we have been dealing with inequalities 
 in relation to poverty and the considerations which 
 
 1 Cf. the International Labour Office in connection with the 
 League of Nations. 
 
 94 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 show that these are not, in the main, the outcome 
 of personal characteristics. It is a less gracious 
 task to show, conversely, that riches also accumulate 
 in personal possession, not, in the main, according to 
 virtue or ability, but from defects in social ordering. 
 
 The fact, however, must be decided as such and 
 not according to prepossessions. ‘There are first of 
 all the broad statistics concerning the distribution 
 of income and wealth given by such authorities as 
 Sir J. C. Stamp, Prof. A. L. Bowley and Sir Leo 
 Chiozza Money. Allowing for differences in the 
 form of statement, they lead us to the same 
 conclusions. 
 
 Sir J. C. Stamp found that 45 per cent. of the 
 national income in 1914 went to 54 per cent. of 
 the income-receivers, so that the other 55 per cent. 
 was distributed among 94% per cent. of the receivers. 
 More particularly analysed, +4, per cent. of the 
 people received 8 per cent. of the income; I per 
 cent. received 22 per cent., and 44 per cent. received 
 15 per cent. “The money levels of the incomes 
 may alter, but these proportions have remained 
 approximately constant. What I may call the 
 ‘slope’ of distribution has not materially altered, 
 and, although all classes*‘may have become better 
 off, they have kept their relative positions and 
 proportions with remarkable stability so far as we 
 can test.”” In 1919, according to the same authority, 
 half of the income was received by one-ninth or 
 one-tenth of the people. This agrees closely with 
 Sir Leo Chiozza Money’s estimate in 1905.1 
 
 1 Wealth and Taxable Capacity, by Sir J.C. Stamp. Riches 
 and Poverty, by Sir L. Chiozza Money. 
 
 95 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 Prof. Bowley, writing of 1911, says that 12,400 
 persons had incomes of over £5,000, aggregating 
 £152,000,000. This gives an average of over 
 £12,250. He also reckons that the national average 
 gross income for a family of five was not more 
 than {230 before the war.t It is clear that 
 with such large incomes above the average line there 
 must have been multitudes very considerably below. 
 This, in fact, the investigations of Prof. Bowley 
 himself, as well as those of Messrs. Charles Booth, 
 Seebohm Rowntree and others, have shown actually 
 to be the case.? 
 
 These enormous disparities of income are quite 
 irreconcilable with any reasonable theory of relative 
 excellence, productive capacity or worth to the 
 nation. And the disparities of property are greater 
 than those of income. Can it possibly be held that 
 those who get eighty times the average income are 
 
 1 The Division of the Product of Industry, by Prof. A. L. Bowley. 
 
 * These figures are, of course, given simply to show the fact 
 and extent of disparity of income. Some members of the 
 Commission desire to draw attention to the conclusions reached 
 by Sir Josiah Stamp that there has actually been a great increase 
 of wealth compared with the increase of population, and that 
 “the evidence goes to show that this increase has been evenly 
 shared by all classes of the population,” and “‘ that the ordinary 
 person of to-day is four times as well off in real commodities as 
 the person in the corresponding stage in the scale in the be- 
 ginning of the nineteenth century.” They also desire to state 
 their judgment that the inequalities have been materially 
 modified by direct taxation, and that in this Christian principles 
 have to a large extent been accepted. The whole chapter 
 (“The Distribution of Capital and Income”) should be read 
 with great care, as extracts, with the exception of undoubted 
 facts, are apt to be misleading one way or the other. 
 
 96 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 eighty times better in any way than the average? 
 Or that those with {12,250 a year are each worth 
 180 farm workers at 25s. a week in any other than 
 the money reckoning? Some other explanation of 
 the facts must be sought. 
 
 This, of course, does not prove that men are not 
 helped to good positions by their abilities, but it does 
 show that the positions they secure receive their 
 value from quite other causes. The man who 
 strikes oil may have been very painstaking in his 
 search and skilled in reading the signs of an oil- 
 bearing region, but neither his labour nor his skill 
 determines the richness of his find. Again, once 
 the oil has been found and the claim staked out, the 
 next man, even though he may have been quite as 
 painstaking and skilful and only a little later in the 
 field through no fault of his own, is shut out from 
 any share. Sometimes the oil enriches a man who 
 knew nothing about it, because it happened to be 
 under his land. 
 
 The same thing is true of social-economic oppor- 
 tunities in general. These may certainly be taken 
 by the ability and diligence of individuals, but they 
 are created by the nature of collective or associated 
 life in which the results of each man’s work are 
 expanded enormously. By the division of labour, 
 the co-ordination of different activities and the 
 general ordering of social life members of a com- 
 munity plan and carry out works which would 
 always be beyond the power, perhaps beyond the 
 imagination, of any individual or even of vast 
 multitudes, if unorganised. It is this association 
 and interplay of activities of every kind which is 
 
 H 97 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 characteristic of civilisation and gives rise to a 
 common store of wealth, both in goods and services, 
 over and above the sum of what the several con- 
 tributors could possibly have claimed as their 
 exclusive creation. Every generation starts with a 
 rich collective inheritance from those that have 
 gone before of knowledge, experience and tradition 
 without which it could produce only a meagre and 
 primitive result. All inventions are dependent 
 upon what a whole host of seekers, past and con- 
 temporary, have achieved, and all successful 
 organisation is the ordering of what is already there. 
 Weare members one of the other and interdependent 
 even in the valuing of the things we do. For 
 however brilliant an invention or however admirably 
 planned an industrial enterprise, it will not give 
 economic wealth unless there is in existence a great 
 body of consumers whose cultivated needs create 
 the market. 
 
 It is the distribution of these social values that 
 constitutes the problem of the inequalities of 
 wealth. In what we call the present system they 
 are not spread evenly over the whole community, 
 but flow as it were in streams which enrich the 
 occupiers of certain positions of advantage. Some 
 of these arise from the nature of things, others can 
 be made by expert handling of circumstance. 
 Custom and law have constituted these rights to 
 receive wealth as property which can be inherited 
 or bought and sold in much the same way as if they 
 were the material results of industry. So long as 
 these customs and laws are allowed no blame can 
 be attached to those who benefit from them, but 
 
 98 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 it is the justice of the customs and laws themselves 
 that is being challenged to-day. For the moment, 
 however, we are concerned only with the examina- 
 tion of the facts. One outstanding fact is that 
 great wealth is associated with the possession of 
 these rights rather than with the receipt of wages 
 or salaries for work done. This comes about in 
 several ways. 
 
 1. The ownership of land, i.e. natural resources, 
 frequently brings a large share of socially created 
 wealth. In some cases the value of land merely as 
 a site has been enormously increased by the growth 
 of towns, especially where business centres are 
 concerned. In others, the discovery of minerals or 
 the creation of an industrial demand for them or 
 the invention of some process for their profitable 
 working produces the same result. The owner is 
 usually enriched, not by utilising the land himself, 
 but by the rents received from those who do. 
 
 2. The possession of large sums of money gives 
 great opportunity of increase of riches. As in the 
 first instance money is simply a medium for the 
 exchange of goods, it might seem to give no greater 
 right of purchase from the general stock of goods 
 than was obtained by the previous sale. ‘This would 
 be true if the second half of the exchange were 
 always completed in the same market as the first. 
 But, as economists point out, money has become 
 “a store of value.’ Its possessor can afford to 
 hold his hand, and while he does so there occur 
 changes in its purchasing power. ‘This is par- 
 ticularly true in connection with that class of 
 property which consists of the right to receive rent, 
 
 fe 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 interest or profits. By carefully watching these 
 changes and buying and selling these rights judic- 
 iously, it is possible to become very wealthy without 
 having added anything to the general wealth of the 
 community; without having had any part, in fact, 
 in industry itself. This is, of course, quite a 
 different thing from the putting of money into an 
 original business enterprise. 
 
 3. Ordinary industrial profit is the difference 
 between the outgoing expenses and the returns of 
 an enterprise. “The amount of this difference is due 
 to a number of causes working together, one of 
 which, the management of the business, is so obvious 
 and really plays so large a part, that where the 
 owner of the business is also the manager, the whole 
 of the profit appears to be the consequence of his 
 personal ability, assuming that his dealings with his 
 employees and business clients have been just. 
 
 Economists, however, have usually analysed this 
 gross profit into the interest on money invested, 
 the reward of management and profit properly so 
 called. In the case of joint-stock companies, which 
 have become so predominant in modern large-scale 
 business, this separation is seen in actual working. | 
 The management is carried on by officers of the 
 company with salaries according to estimated 
 ability, and a considerable portion of the capital 
 receives a fixed interest. ‘The remainder of the 
 profit goes as reserves or as dividends to the owners, 
 t.¢..the shareholders. In either case it becomes 
 their property, and any surplus over the current 
 rate of interest is profit pure and simple. 
 
 The source of this profit is obviously social. It 
 100 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 goes to the owners of the business because it remains 
 in their hands after all obligations have been met, 
 and according to existing laws and customs no one 
 else has a right to it. ‘This is usually justified on 
 the grounds that if there are sometimes great gains 
 there are also frequently losses, and in a large 
 number of cases the amount received is approximate 
 to the interest only. ‘The owners take the risk and 
 are justified in taking also the gains. It is in this 
 way that accumulation is made possible from which 
 the investment of capital for increased production 
 can be made; since a general diffusion of this social 
 profit would result in such a low level of income 
 that only inconsiderable savings from consumption 
 would be made. It is the possibility of these gains 
 which supplies the only motive strong enough to 
 induce such investment. 
 
 This may be of considerable force as an analysis 
 of things as they are, but does not meet the question 
 whether the price paid is not so severe as to demand 
 some fundamental change in the conditions. It is 
 at best an argument from expediency rather than 
 from right, and even on the ground of expediency 
 appears to attach too little importance to the evils 
 which are associated with present methods. 
 
 1. The risk which is supposed to be compensated 
 by possibilities of great gain is itself very largely the 
 creation of the same conditions which make the gain 
 possible, and from the public point of view the 
 losses entailed must be set off against what appears 
 to be an increase of general wealth by “ successful 
 enterprise.” ‘The weekly list of bankruptcies, while 
 
 swollen by instances due to personal extravagance, 
 Io! 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 incompetence and similar causes, contains a dis- 
 tressing number of cases where industrious and 
 reasonably competent men have gone down before 
 those who hold the stronger positions. As a 
 matter of fact, the great gains are acquired in those 
 businesses from which risk has been largely elimin- 
 ated by the acquisition of partial or complete 
 monopoly, whether natural or created by the 
 agreement of powerful interests. “‘ Competition ” 
 is no longer the fetish of the business world. In 
 large-scale business those who have acquired ad- 
 vantages in production and occupied the most 
 effective positions for disposing of their goods are 
 usually strongly entrenched against it and are able 
 to eliminate a great deal of waste, so that profits 
 are enlarged without necessarily raising prices. In 
 fact, while trusts and combines have the power to 
 squeeze the public, and sometimes do, they can 
 frequently serve it better. Their organisation, 
 apart from the diversion of socially created profits 
 into the hands of a minority, seems to point the 
 way to a more effective system for meeting social 
 needs, when consistently directed to this end. 
 
 2. The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a 
 few does not seem to be the only possible way of 
 setting aside the necessary amount of capital for 
 further production. This amount remains the 
 same, whether made up by contributions of single 
 pounds or by sums that run into hundreds of 
 thousands. ‘The real problem seems to be one of 
 management rather than of ownership. Certainly 
 the present method has the very serious drawback 
 
 of associating with accumulation of wealth for 
 102 
 
CHARACTER AND SYSTEM 
 
 investment the parallel accumulation of wealth for 
 spending, in the hands of a comparatively few. 
 Clearly this spending wealth must be taken either 
 from the amount which might be invested or from 
 what might be spent by others whose needs are now 
 unsatisfied. ‘The more strongly the argument is 
 pressed that a general distribution of wealth would 
 mean an income for everyone so low that no one 
 could afford to save much, the more apparent it 
 becomes that with the present glaring disparities 
 the lack of spending power in the lower levels must 
 be terribly acute. It is this coexistence of luxurious 
 spending with chronic want that is a prolific cause 
 of bitterness and a rankling sense of injustice which 
 must lead to social insecurity, unless some very 
 convincing moral justification is given. It is inten- 
 sified by the vivid descriptions of luxurious expendi- 
 ture in the press and by the advertisements which 
 appeal to the wealthy. It must be remembered 
 that to-day the cheaper press is read by the multi- 
 tudes, who have been educated to read. ‘This was 
 not formerly the case. 
 
 3. This predominance of purchasing power on 
 the part of the wealthy determines the flow of 
 production to articles of luxury, while elementary 
 needs, such as food, housing, clothing, etc., remain 
 unsatisfied. This is in itself a considerable factor 
 in causing unemployment, since the demand for 
 luxuries is more inconstant than that for necessities. 
 
 4. It also means that the purchasing power of 
 the many is so restricted that there is an unnaturally 
 limited demand for the necessities, leading to those 
 
 times when great want is accompanied by so-called 
 103 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 over-production. ‘This is a very real cause of the 
 recurring times of bad trade, and points to what is 
 actually restricting production. It suggests that a 
 juster distribution of what is produced would have 
 the effect of greatly increasing the amount of wealth 
 to be distributed. 
 
 The question of motive is more complex. It is a 
 strong assertion that the expectation of great gain 
 is the only effective means of inducing saving for 
 capital. ‘The moderate saving of multitudes for a 
 moderate return might be quite as effective as large 
 savings on the part of a few for the gains that put 
 them into a class apart. But the whole question 
 of motive needs examination. It is by no means 
 to be taken for granted to-day that the finer motives 
 of men have no effective place in the work of pro- 
 viding the means of life for themselves and their 
 neighbours, and that no better social arrangements 
 could give them more effective place. 
 
 104 
 
CHARTER: VI 
 THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 

 
 
 
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CHAPTER VI 
 THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 Criticism is commonly directed to the activities 
 ot men as owners of land or capital, as directors of 
 industry, commerce or finance, or as workers for a 
 wage or salary. People do actually fall into separ- 
 ate groups in these respects, their interests are 
 often conflicting and the connection between what 
 they do and the things that are felt to be wrong 
 stands out clearly in the public mind. It must not 
 be forgotten, however, that in whichever of these 
 classes we may find ourselves or in none, we are all 
 consumers and as such are responsible for whatever 
 happens in the world of industry in consequence of 
 the demands which we make through our pur- 
 chasing power. ‘The classical economists recognised 
 the importance of this when they divided their 
 science under the three heads of production, distri- 
 bution and consumption, but in fact they gave 
 most of their attention to the first two. 
 
 This was probably due to the difficulty they felt 
 in going behind the decision of the consumer him- 
 self as to what was good for him and the general 
 acceptance of the doctrine that if each one sought 
 his own good the result would be the best for the 
 
 community at large. In both respects, through the 
 107 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 teaching of its Lord, Christianity has a positive 
 contribution to make. In the first place, Jesus 
 puts forward an objective standard of what the use 
 of material goods ought to achieve, apart from the 
 likes, dislikes and possibly mistaken views of the 
 person who uses them. ‘Their purpose is to minister 
 to the life of men. This does not involve us in © 
 difficult discussions as to the metaphysical nature 
 of life, but simply asks for common-sense judgments 
 as to the effects upon health, intelligence, beauty 
 and the quality of human relations. In the second 
 place, He lays it down that concentration upon self- 
 centred interests is disastrous both for the self- 
 seeker and for others. Whether recognised as 
 Christian or not, these two principles are increas- 
 ingly influencing general conviction. 
 
 It has also become clear, in the progress of 
 economic thought, that the reactions of con- 
 sumption upon production itself are important in 
 many ways. While from one point of view the 
 using of goods is the end of all the productive 
 stages which have made it possible, from another 
 the demand for goods for use is the initial cause 
 and the sustaining power of their production. It 
 is true that to a certain extent customers find their 
 choice limited to goods which are already made 
 and offered for sale, and that the art of the advertiser 
 and the salesman has been highly developed in the 
 direction of persuading people that they want what 
 these others desire to sell. It is also true that 
 pressure of circumstances frequently compels the 
 purchaser to take what is available rather than what 
 
 is really desired. But in the main the interest of 
 108 
 
THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 the producer is to find out what people ask for and 
 to give it to them. No business can continue that 
 fails seriously in this, and success is secured by the 
 degree in which those wants are correctly inter- 
 preted. If there are enough people to keep up the 
 demand for things that injure life instead of helping 
 it, the supply of those things will be maintained. 
 If the numbers decline, so will the profit and power 
 of the industry. That in itself constitutes the 
 responsibility which lies upon all men and women 
 of goodwill, and therefore especially upon Christians, 
 to observe the effects of their own consumption and 
 their use of the purchasing power in their hands 
 both upon their own life and that of others directly 
 and indirectly concerned. 
 
 Tue Hurtrut REAcTIONS OF CONSUMPTION 
 
 The injurious effects of thoughtless, unwise or 
 vicious demands may be briefly indicated. 
 
 1. Injury to the consumer.—That a great deal of 
 expenditure results in actual damage to the life 
 of the spenders is undoubted, whether this is due 
 to the nature of the things demanded or to a 
 foolish and vicious use of them. Noxious drugs, 
 pornographic books and pictures and lustful indul- 
 gences would be generally acknowledged as harmful 
 in themselves. No one denies the results of alcoholic 
 excess in disease, certain forms of crime, moral and 
 mental wreckage and loss of effectiveness generally. 
 Very much the same may be said of betting and 
 gambling; it is not questioned that the spend- 
 
 ing of resources in this way is associated with 
 109 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 grave evils to character and home life, leading in 
 many cases to crime. And, in general, excess turns 
 what is innocent and even necessary in appropriate 
 measure to evil. Gluttony can transform food 
 itself into a poison, and recreations, if extravagantly 
 pursued, instead of recreating, sap the strength ~ 
 both of body and character. 
 
 2. The burden on others—From the Christian 
 oint of view, that regards the life of each as either 
 fulfilling or thwarting God’s purpose, the damage 
 to one’s self is not merely a selfish concern. But 
 it cannot be confined to the consumer. We are so 
 bound by social ties that the burden of a weakened, 
 impoverished and degraded life falls upon others— 
 upon the family, the city and the nation. Economic- 
 ally it has to be paid for in rates and taxes and loss 
 of producing power; spiritually it is borne in sweat 
 
 and anguish of the soul. 
 
 3. The waste of resources.—It is clear that for the 
 production of the hurtful things, the excess of 
 things misused and the remedying of the damage 
 done by this foolish and vicious consumption, an 
 enormous amount of material and of human labour 
 and skill is diverted from the positive service of 
 human life. The fields that grow the opium 
 poppies in excess of medical needs might grow 
 beneficial crops; the buildings, apparatus, means of 
 transport and organisations that supply the excess 
 of alcohol might yield it for profitable use in industry 
 or be put to other purposes. Worst of all is the 
 human power which is in this way poured out to 
 ignoble ends. To share in creative industry may 
 
 well be joyous, but to be constrained to work for 
 IIo 
 
THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 hurtful purposes is hardly conducive to “the 
 nobility of labour.” 
 
 4. Demands that tnjure producers—Many goods 
 or services which the consumer can use with benefit 
 to himself are enjoyed at the cost of some harm 
 to those who make the goods or give the service. 
 We are thankful for much that has been done; 
 we no longer use up the tender years of childhood 
 in factories, mines, brick-fields and chimneys; 
 machinery is required to be fenced, ‘‘ phossy-jaw ” 
 and some other distressing ailments of industry 
 have been eliminated, and greater leisure has been 
 won for the overworked in shops and factories. 
 But there are still grave questions concerning the 
 misuse of the years of adolescence for the produc- 
 tion of goods rather than the making of men and 
 women, occupational diseases are far too many and 
 too rife, the toll of life and limb in our coal-mines, 
 railways and other services is appallingly heavy, and 
 many of us are tempted to repress an inconvenient 
 curiosity about the conditions of those by whose 
 labour we have our comforts and amenities. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SociAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 Obviously, the demands for these goods and 
 services that in some way injure human life instead 
 of enriching it come in the first instance from 
 individuals; if they were to cease, so would the 
 supply. In the case of things that injure the con- 
 sumer himself this seems to be in the main the 
 right line of approach, though the community has 
 
 its own responsibility even here, since, as has been 
 Ne WY 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 said, the injury cannot be confined to the con- 
 sumer alone. Just where the corporate action of 
 society should intervene is rather a matter for 
 Christian politics than for the present discussion. 
 In the case of injury to the producer—using the 
 term to cover all services up to delivery of the 
 goods—the refusal of individuals to buy has proved ° 
 in practice to be remote and of little effect, as in 
 the case of the ‘‘ white lists” which were tried in 
 earlier years. It is possible to keep one’s conscience 
 a little easier, but not much else. And every 
 individual has also a responsibility for acting cor- 
 porately with his fellows as well as for what he 
 does by himself. A great part of this responsi- 
 bility is to find out resolutely under what conditions 
 the goods and services we consume actually become 
 ours for the purchase. Historically, such knowledge 
 widely spread has been a powerful stimulus to 
 effective action. 
 
 Luxury 
 
 The question of luxury, which has always proved 
 so baflling in discussion, finds its practical solution 
 in these same principles of Christ. The confusion 
 has arisen through the many different meanings 
 attached to the word. It is not possible to say 
 whether “luxury” is right or wrong if we think 
 only of costliness or of pleasantness or of beauty. 
 The important thing is not the definition of a word, 
 but the determination of what use of things is 
 good and what is hurtful. The test of life, for 
 
 ourselves and for others, offers us the answer. 
 eG 
 
THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 Jesus pointed out that it is not from the abund- 
 ance of things that life gets its fullness. Experience 
 confirms this. Beginning at the starvation limit, 
 successive increases of food bring corresponding 
 increases of strength and health up to a certain 
 point. But afterwards, so far from further in- 
 creases bringing greater strength, they bring a 
 diminution of life’s power and, if pushed too far, 
 disease and ultimately death. Less obviously but 
 no less truly, this applies to all the ‘‘ means of life.” 
 Life comes from due measure in the use of things, 
 not from mere abundance. A measure of comfort 
 will conserve and liberate our powers, too much 
 results in their atrophy. The pursuit of pleasure 
 defeats its own end by boredom. Over-refinement 
 is loss- of robustness; excess of decoration is not 
 beauty but vulgar ostentation. 
 
 Side by side with the futility—and worse—of 
 excessive expenditure for ourselves there is a graver 
 connection with the lack of others. Sometimes this 
 is clearly causal, but in any case there is always the 
 contrast of these two conditions, both hostile to the 
 best life and giving rise to social reactions that are 
 far-reaching in character. There has arisen a 
 stratification of society with a false scale of social 
 values according to style of living, which is very 
 different from the natural grouping according to 
 occupations, tastes and other healthy varieties of 
 relation. From it flow envies, misunderstanding, 
 strife, scorn and snobbishness. 
 
 Sumptuary laws have been of little avail, but 
 much might be done by a practical embodiment of 
 
 the Christian spirit of renunciation, a convincing 
 I 113 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 demonstration that we can be poor in the power 
 of the spirit without being forced to be poor by 
 circumstance. A voluntary acceptance of poverty, 
 at least while others suffer through lack, like that of 
 Francis of Assisi, though not necessarily in the form 
 he gave to it, would not only liberate the means of — 
 meeting this lack, but the goodwill on either side 
 to set wrong right. Some have indeed chosen this 
 part, but how many to the point of sacrifice? 
 
 Two common fallacies may be noted in this 
 connection. The first is that expenditure on 
 luxuries is not only justifiable but praiseworthy, 
 because it ‘‘ provides men with work.” By this, of 
 course, is meant the income that is associated with 
 the work. Economists have often exposed this 
 fallacy, but it exists to an amazing extent. It is 
 based on the false contrast of employing men or 
 leaving them unemployed, which is not the real 
 alternative. Demand of some kind, of course, is 
 necessary to bring about employment, but the 
 purchasing power which is exhausted on super- 
 fluities or services which result neither in life nor 
 in a greater store of what can minister to life might 
 be much better used in meeting life’s real needs, 
 especially those of other people who lack. To 
 spend thousands of pounds on hothouses for one’s 
 own pleasure may employ a certain number of work- 
 men in their construction and another set of men 
 for their upkeep, but the same amount spent upon 
 the construction and upkeep of play spaces for 
 growing boys and girls in crowded quarters would 
 give just as much employment and leave a far 
 greater contribution to human life behind it. 
 
 114 
 
THE CONSUMER’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is found that employ- 
 ment for “ luxuries ”’ is far more unstable and liable 
 to disturb the labour market than employment for 
 the continuing needs of human life. 
 
 The second fallacy is that if all that is spent 
 on “ luxuries ” were distributed among those whose 
 income falls short of their needs, the amount would 
 be so small per head as to be insignificant, and there- 
 fore not worth troubling about. As this is largely 
 based upon the fact established by Prof. A. G. 
 Bowley, that an equal distribution of the present 
 national income “would have little more than 
 sufficed to bring the wages of adult men and women 
 up to a minimum of 355. 3d. weekly for a man and 
 20s. for a woman, which Mr. Rowntree... 
 estimates as reasonable,’ ! it is well to draw atten- 
 tion to Prof. Bowley’s own conclusion, that “‘ when 
 it is realised that the whole income of the nation 
 was only sufficient for reasonable needs if equally 
 divided, luxurious expenditure is seen to be more 
 unjustifiable than has commonly been supposed, 
 and the problems of obtaining a distribution that 
 is more reasonable and of reducing poverty appear 
 more difficult, though none the less urgent.” ? 
 He finds the solution, as we must all find it, in a 
 greater production through a better use both of 
 capital and labour power (including skill in manage- 
 ment) and a better application of the results by 
 means of better education, improved physique, more 
 leisure and better environment, with full oppor- 
 tunity for the use of all intelligence, strength and 
 
 1 A. L. Bowley, The Division of the Product of Industry, p. 49. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 50. 
 
 115 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 skill. This can only be achieved through a better 
 application of our resources, both individual and 
 national, to the purposes of life: which again brings 
 us to the ethics and economics of consumption. 
 
 When we remember that not only “ luxuri- 
 ous” (in the sense of superfluous or enfeebling) - 
 expenditure but the conditions of modern poverty 
 themselves are very costly, we begin to get a vision 
 of a use of even our present total income which. 
 would bring about a fuller life for all. 
 
 We feel that there is a strong challenge to all 
 sincere Christians to work out a better standard of 
 life which would not only in theory but in practice 
 make better but less costly living more possible. 
 There are already many modest homes of leaders 
 in art, literature, science, the professions and the 
 churches which go far to prove that the best culture 
 and social intercourse are not nearly so expensive 
 as is generally supposed, but well within the reach 
 of a society that would in comparison with existing 
 conditions be reckoned as poor. 
 
 From the same economic analysis which Prof. 
 Bowley has given, it follows that such a readjust- 
 ment of our expenditure would liberate fresh springs 
 of productive power, and if, as he truly says, such 
 readjustment will need time, skill and patience, with 
 great risk of failure if we “ attempt to grasp the 
 fruits of progress before the tree that might produce 
 them has been cultivated,” that is all the more 
 reason for setting about that cultivation at the 
 earliest possible moment with an adequate purpose 
 and resolve to apply to it all our powers. 
 
 116 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
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CHAPTER VII 
 MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 No satisfactory analysis of the motives in industry 
 seems as yet to have been made; most of the text- 
 books dismiss the subject in comparatively few 
 words. On the other hand, the critics of the 
 existing order very commonly simplify too much. 
 So in ordinary discussion we have the motive of 
 gain opposed to the motive of service as if these 
 were the only powerful motives to be considered. 
 Yet there are, in fact, a number of others. The 
 following analysis is not presented as being exhaus- 
 tive nor as a model of scientific classification, but it 
 will serve as a basis for discussion. 
 
 1. Desire to supply the needs of one’s self and 
 family, with the corresponding fear of failure. 
 
 2. The acquisitive instinct: desire for increased 
 income. 
 
 3. Love of power over others, including the 
 spirit of emulation. 
 
 4. Regard for public opinion, ranging from the 
 family to the public at large. The desire 
 for social status may be included. 
 
 s. Self-realisation: embodiment of creative 
 powers: the adventurous and enterprising 
 spirit. 
 
 IIc 
 
~ 
 
 INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 6. Sense of justice, including perhaps the desire 
 for independence. 
 
 7. Desire to serve others: the parental instinct 
 and its extensions. Also the co-operative 
 instinct. 
 
 8. Habit and inertia. 
 
 FuLiter ANALYSIS 
 
 1. The desire to meet the daily needs, with the 
 corresponding fear of failure, is probably the strong- 
 est and most dependable of motives which actuate 
 the majority of men. It is due to this that the 
 greater part of the work of the world gets done. 
 Normally, the positive desire is stronger than the 
 corresponding fear, but it is perhaps impossible to 
 dissociate the two. Employers frequently assert 
 that more work is done when trade is slack and jobs 
 are uncertain than when trade is brisk and men are 
 in demand. On the other hand, excessive and 
 prolonged fear demoralises men and makes them 
 unwilling or unable to work well. Precariousness 
 of employment is certainly one of the great causes of 
 restriction of output. ‘There can be no doubt that 
 there are thousands of men and women who could 
 do much better work if they were free from acute 
 anxiety. 
 
 2. The acquisitive instinct is associated with many 
 of the other motives which have been tabulated, 
 but is in itself distinct, as is seen in the extreme case 
 of misers. Probably by far the greater number of 
 men and women are strongly moved by it, but it 
 
 operates very unevenly in different persons, different 
 120 
 
MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 classes and different forms of society, perhaps also 
 at different ages. It is common knowledge that 
 many workers who have enough to maintain their 
 accustomed standard of life do not respond at all 
 readily to a stimulus to increased production. ‘This 
 is one of the recognised difficulties in the develop- 
 ment of tropical countries by native labour. In our 
 modern society the multiplication of forms of 
 wealth and the methods and scale of our industrial 
 system give almost indefinite scope to this motive. 
 Accumulation becomes a habit and part of a phi- 
 losophy of life. Rich men take steps to get richer, 
 often without any consideration of possible uses for 
 the increase of their wealth. 
 
 3. Love of power over others is another of the 
 great driving forces for very many men, and probably 
 plays a large part in the continued seeking for 
 wealth beyond possible use which has just been 
 noted. It is not confined to the acquisition of 
 money, though this is the readiest means of exer- 
 cising it. Men love to take commanding positions 
 in their particular line, so that their views and 
 judgments receive deference. In this respect emu- 
 lation may be associated with love of power, since 
 it seems to be compounded of self-assertiveness 
 and pugnacity. Domination is a motive in many 
 sports, and emulation—the desire for pre-eminence 
 —gives the exhilaration of a game to many business 
 careers. 
 
 Abuse of power—perhaps especially by those in 
 petty authority—causes a great deal of friction and 
 resentment in industrial life. Apart from par- 
 
 ticular cases, there is a growing feeling among large 
 I2I 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 sections of workers against the regulation of their 
 lives by an authority quite external to themselves 
 and without any sanction that appeals to their moral 
 judgment. The demand for democracy in industry 
 may be exaggerated by some, but there is un- 
 doubtedly a widespread uneasiness amongst the 
 workers and a new feeling of their right to share in 
 power. 
 
 4. Public opinion—the prevailing view of those 
 groups to which a man is sensitive—is in the main > 
 a levelling force. Regard for it is largely of the 
 nature of what is to-day called the “ herd instinct.” 
 It deters employers from offering wages or con- 
 ditions much better or much worse than those 
 offered by other employers in their trade or dis- 
 trict. It tends strongly to level up, or more 
 commonly to level down, effort and initiative in the 
 workshop. On the other hand, the public opinion 
 of one’s family or set will often prove a strong 
 incentive to achieve something that is commonly 
 expected by those who form a high opinion of one’s 
 abilities. Public opinion is also a powerful factor 
 in the desire for higher social status, though the 
 love of pre-eminence and power also has much to 
 do with this. 
 
 5. Self-realisation, the desire to create something 
 expressive of self, is usually strong where its action 
 is not blocked by conditions of employment. Where 
 it can find even slight scope it is responsible for a 
 great deal of work, and especially for quality of 
 work, which none of the other motives will secure 
 without it. It asserts itself amazingly in thousands 
 
 even of routine workers, if the smallest opportunity 
 122 
 
MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 of initiative be given. In men whose positions 
 allow, it is often the dominant motive, and it is the 
 force by which initiators in industry are most 
 frequently driven. 
 
 Where, however, it is blocked, much mischief of 
 one sort or another is apt to result. ‘To its repres- 
 sion and frustration must be attributed a good deal 
 of slackness, discontent and even bitterness. Not 
 a few perversions, such as drug-taking, excessive 
 drinking and gambling, find in this one of their 
 causes. Certainly for want of opportunity for 
 expression this powerful motive is wasted or misused 
 in the case of most of the workers at present. 
 
 Closely akin is the adventurous spirit, into which 
 both curiosity and pugnacity enter. Many inven- 
 tions, many new methods and a great deal of the 
 Opening up of new countries and new regions of 
 activity have come from men who find a joy in 
 taking risks. Where it is repressed it is apt to 
 break out in troublesome disorder and anti-social 
 tendencies. 
 
 6. The sense of justice is witnessed to by the per- 
 sistent belief that there is such a thing as a “‘ fair 
 wage,” a “just price” or a “ reasonable profit,” } 
 however difficult of determination these things may 
 be and however far men in their own practice fall 
 short. Probably the strong desire for ‘‘ indepen- 
 dence,” though mixed in motive, owes a good deal 
 to the feeling that one should give at least an 
 equivalent for what is received. (This is not the 
 same thing as the desire to be “ independent of the 
 necessity for working.’’) 
 
 1 See Social Economics, by J. H. Jones. 
 123 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 The sense of injustice in industrial dealings is one 
 of the strongest causes of friction. ‘The workers 
 feel that their wages and conditions are not what 
 they “‘ ought to be” and that others are getting 
 rich at their expense. The employers feel that they 
 are not receiving a fair return in work for the 
 wages paid, and they resent it. Human relations 
 are poisoned and embittered and efficiency is 
 hampered. 
 
 This sense of justice is probably normal to all 
 unsophisticated persons, but needs for its persistence 
 and effectiveness to be linked to a strong sense of 
 personal duty on the one hand, and to be given 
 suitable social arrangements for its practical expres- 
 sion on the other. As commerce and industry are 
 organised to-day the machinery is not adequate, 
 neither is there an effective standard to secure that 
 the wage or profit is fair, that the price is just and 
 that no party to a bargain is a loser. ‘The conten- 
 tion of the older economists that this would be 
 automatically secured by free competition would 
 be accepted by few to-day, in face of actual ex- 
 perience. Such machinery as we have, e.g. Trade 
 Boards, is only intended to prevent glaring abuses, 
 not to secure justice in the majority of transactions. 
 But in the absence of means to decide what is just, 
 the desire to be just atrophies. 
 
 7. The motive of service is commonly said to 
 operate only feebly in modern industry. It is true 
 that the elaborate subdivision of processes, the 
 standardisation of methods and of products, the 
 vastness and remoteness of markets, involving the 
 personal separation of the worker from those 
 
 124 
 
MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 benefited by his work, have done much to dry up 
 the springs of service. 
 
 The motive is, however, probably a good deal 
 stronger than is generally admitted. In shopping, 
 house-hunting, staying at a hotel, employing decor- 
 ators in the home or in the transaction of any kind 
 of business where there is direct contact between 
 the person giving the service and the person bene- 
 fiting, the presence or absence of the motive makes 
 an enormous difference in well-being. ‘The natural 
 kindliness will often assert itself over unfavourable 
 conditions and is a social asset of inestimable value. 
 The efforts of some large employers to help the 
 workers to understand the whole process in which 
 they take a small part and to see the ultimate pur- 
 pose for the consumer may be the beginnings of a 
 recovery of the sense of service in the occupations 
 that are remote from personal contact. 
 
 The parental instinct of service of one’s own 
 young finds its extension in the general impulse 
 to protect and care for the weak, where this has 
 not been obscured by conditions which intensify 
 the egoistic motives. It is much more naturally 
 prevalent, especially among the poor, than is 
 usually admitted. Closely allied is the practice 
 of mutual aid, which appears to be instinctive in 
 men as in other living species, asshown by Kropotkin.* 
 
 8. Habit and inertia are not properly speaking 
 motives, but they are powerful forces influencing 
 social conduct. With them may be classed the 
 imitation that arises from suggestion made by the 
 conduct observed in other members of the same 
 
 1 Mutual Aid, by P. Kropotkin. 
 125 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 society. ‘They have to be reckoned with in any 
 social changes that are made, since practices suitable 
 to one condition may persist after conditions have 
 been changed in other respects, and become not 
 only unsuitable but causes of failure to achieve the 
 result intended. 
 
 Tue CurisTIAN Point or Virw 
 
 The desire to supply one’s needs and those of one’s - 
 family is both natural and right, provided that we 
 have a clear idea of what the needs really are and 
 of the distinction drawn by Ruskin between wealth 
 and illth. ‘‘ Your heavenly Father knoweth that 
 ye have need of all these things.” At the same time, 
 their purpose for life must be borne in mind, and 
 we should be unwilling to get good things at the 
 expense of others. ‘he apostolic injunctions, “ If 
 any will not work, neither shall he eat,” and “ If 
 any provideth not for his own, and specially his own 
 household, he hath denied the faith,” show how this 
 matter was regarded in the early days of the Church, 
 and that it is not inconsistent with Christianity that 
 the fear of want should be the ultimate coercion 
 to work. But it should be very much in the back- 
 ground, and a Christian society would see that the 
 full opportunity to work for these needs is given. 
 
 Acquisitiveness applied to material riches certainly 
 comes under our Lord’s repeated warnings against 
 the perils of riches and the folly as well as sin of 
 covetousness. ‘The instinct may be “ sublimated ” 
 by turning it towards the increase of “ life that is 
 life indeed,” and by reckoning another’s good as 
 
 our OWN. 
 126 
 
MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 Much the same thing may be said of the desire 
 for power over others. The New Testament is full 
 of warnings as to its exercise in the sense of “ lording 
 it over them.” There is, however, a legitimate 
 power to sway and infiuence other lives through 
 service and through the administration which is in 
 the spirit of service. Christianity recognises the 
 need for leaders; it will not endure tyrants. 
 
 Regard for the opinion of others may easily 
 become a weakness and a peril. It is the part of 
 Christians rather to change and shape public opinion 
 than to be shaped by it. Yet here also much 
 depends on whose opinion is regarded. ‘The more 
 public opinion is leavened by the teaching and 
 judgments of Christ the more powerfully will it 
 help those who are weak in initiative. 
 
 The desire to create something and to express 
 one’s self is part of the raw material of life, that can 
 be turned to good or to bad account. Our Lord 
 came that we “ might have life, and have it more 
 abundantly.” Christians should work tor a social 
 structure that gives opportunity for the development 
 of the best in man and certainly does not tend to 
 repress it. Our Lord also is full of praise for the 
 adventurous and enterprising spirit, and of rebuke 
 for those who will not take risks for higher things. 
 But, again, all depends on the purpose for which 
 the risk is taken. 
 
 The sense of justice is expressed in the admonition, 
 “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,’”’ and 
 in the Golden Rule. Just dealing ought to be 
 fostered and encouraged in any society that claims 
 to be Christian. But the Christian sense of justice 
 
 127 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 moves in the positive direction of just giving rather 
 than just penalising, and it leaves room for giving 
 more if need requires. ‘This is seen in the Parable 
 of the Labourers. 
 
 The desire to serve others would be the dominant 
 motive in a fully Christian society, though by no | 
 means the only one. It would work with and 
 through the others that have been examined. It 
 would be socially dominant because flowing 
 naturally from the personal service of God and the 
 “seeking His Kingdom,” which our Lord gives 
 us as the foremost object of prayer and the central 
 purpose of activity. It goes with the extension 
 of the family into the social relation which is the 
 constant theme of our Lord’s teaching, and the 
 cooperation which naturally results, as conceived 
 in S. Paul’s great figure of the body and its members. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 We have to test the present relations of men with 
 one another in industry and commerce by the great 
 conception, central to our religion, of a community 
 united by a common spirit and with its energies 
 devoted to a common end, a society making pro- 
 vision for the expression of both personality and 
 solidarity. Judged by this test, our present organi- 
 sation fails wofully, and no doubt in the light of this 
 ideal any organisation that we are likely to achieve 
 will appear defective. But it seems clear that we 
 have quite unnecessarily failed to use the real motives 
 of men to their present possible extent; that we 
 
 have even deliberately favoured the least worthy 
 128 
 
MOTIVES IN INDUSTRY 
 
 and those most readily turned to evil. While no 
 organisation can work with good result that is not 
 energised by the right spirit, neither can the spirit 
 that is already in men achieve anything unless 
 provided with the appropriate organism. And it 
 is by the light of the ideal that we not only judge 
 the present but shape the future. No organisation 
 nor any social arrangement remains justifiable 
 while something better can be put in its place; it 
 is the duty of our generation to seek and to experi- 
 ment till we find a more brotherly and truly’ co- 
 operative way of carrying on industry and commerce. 
 

 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 

 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 I. THe MEANING oF Property As A Ricut! 
 
 1. While there may be differences of opinion 
 about the Christian doctrine of the origin or right 
 of property, there are certain very emphatic prin- 
 ciples about its use. ‘The references to property in 
 the New Testament bring out two important 
 conceptions. 
 
 The first is enforced with great simplicity but 
 with great emphasis: the owner is required to use 
 it not only for his individual satisfaction but for the 
 good of others. Our Lord has put this into the 
 simplest but most far-reaching terms in the Parable 
 of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and His teaching is 
 reflected in the words of the First Epistle of S. John, 
 * Whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his 
 brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion 
 from him, how doth the love of God abide in 
 him ? ” 
 
 The second is the danger of riches to the pos- 
 sessor. ‘“*‘ How hardly shall they that have riches 
 enter into the kingdom of God.” ‘This is reflected 
 in the First Epistle to Timothy: ‘“ The love of 
 money is a root of all kinds of evil.” 
 
 1 The section on “ The Meaning of Property as a Right” was 
 contributed by a special committee in Oxford. 
 
 133 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 It seems reasonable to say that in the teaching of 
 our Lord and the writers of the New Testament 
 the existence of private property 1s recognised as a 
 fact; it is neither praised nor blamed. What they 
 are concerned with is, on the one hand, the perils 
 which are incidental to its existence, and on the - 
 other the unhesitating repudiation of an absolute 
 or unrestricted right of any man to use it at his 
 pleasure.! | 
 
 2. In order to give due significance to these 
 principles we must approach the question of pro- 
 perty under more general terms. 
 
 It may be contended that some property relation 
 between the individual and things is a normally 
 necessary condition of human personality. So far 
 as this is true it must be the function of society to 
 protect it. However this may be, the idea of 
 private property, whether individual or corporate, 
 to-day implies the existence of law, for by private 
 property we mean that in which individual or 
 corporate rights are sanctioned and protected by 
 law. 
 
 It must therefore be carefully observed that the 
 rights of property, as they are protected, are also 
 limited by law. There is no such thing as an 
 unlimited legal right either of ownership or of use. 
 The community always retains its right to such 
 part of a man’s private property as may be required 
 for the public needs—that is the rationale of taxa- 
 tion. Also, the community restricts or prohibits 
 
 1 The words of our Lord in the Parable of the Labourer 
 (Matt. xx, 1 ff.) belong to its dramatic setting. (See also 
 “‘ Introduction.”’) 
 
 134 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 such use of property as it judges to be inconsistent 
 with the well-being of the community. This does 
 not mean that the action of the community in 
 regard to property either is or ought to be arbitrary. 
 The question of the authority of the community is 
 dealt with in another Report; we need only say 
 that the authority of the community is limited by 
 the principles of the moral order of life. But just 
 so far as this moral order requires for its perfection 
 the expression of individuality in some property 
 relative to things, the State exists to protect and 
 further this. 
 
 3. In order, however, to discuss this subject 
 further we must consider briefly the question of 
 the origin of private property. It cannot be dis- 
 puted that the development of this belongs to a 
 certain stage in the history of civilisation. ‘The 
 primitive world was a world of groups rather than 
 of individuals. Indeed, the clear recognition of 
 what we mean by individual personality belongs 
 only to the more developed civilisation, and so with 
 the individual right of property. This does not 
 mean that there were no individuals in primitive 
 society or that there was then no individual pro- 
 perty, but it does mean that, compared with the 
 later conditions, the extent of individual property 
 was insignificant. The history of the origin of 
 individual private property is the history of the 
 gradual disentanglement of individual rights from 
 group rights. It is also clear that the rationale of 
 this process has been in the main the real or sup- 
 posed economic convenience not only of the indi- 
 vidual but also of the group. Individual private 
 
 135 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 property has arisen out of the real or supposed 
 convenience of society, its legal rights depend upon 
 that convenience and will be limited by that con- 
 venience, and also by its relation to the moral order 
 of society. 
 
 As a legal institution, therefore, primarily of 
 utility or convenience, private property is not the 
 direct concern of religion and morality, but it 
 becomes so mainly through its relation to the 
 function of the State in setting forward the moral 
 order of life. So far as its convenience or utility is 
 concerned, the questions are economic in nature, 
 but it is an altogether different matter when the 
 legal rights of property are found to involve a moral 
 relation of the owner to others. The question of 
 the right to the use of property has therefore two 
 forms. ‘The first is concerned with the use of 
 things as such, the other with the power which the 
 control of accumulated property gives not only over 
 things, but over human life, directly or indirectly. 
 This power is by far the more important. It has 
 always been so in measure, but the development of 
 the last few centuries has enormously increased its 
 significance. Jor the concentration of great capitals 
 in the hands of individuals or groups has placed in 
 the hands of these owners an immense power over 
 the lives and fortunes of others. It is here that 
 religion is most gravely concerned, for this exercise 
 of power by men over men belongs clearly to the 
 moral order of life. It is plainly impossible that 
 religion can be indifferent to its nature, methods 
 and results, or that the moral conscience can be 
 
 satisfied with only a partial control. It is necessary, 
 136 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 therefore, to examine these aspects of property more 
 closely. 
 
 II. DirFERENCES IN THE NATURE OF PROPERTY 
 
 Economists have always drawn a clear distinction 
 between three classes of things, called by them 
 Land, Capital and Consumption Goods respectively. 
 *¢ Land ” includes all the natural material and forces 
 which man did not create, but can only shape and 
 adjust. Without these there could be no produc- 
 tion at all. ‘“* Capital’? includes all those things 
 which man has shaped by his labour out of the 
 natural resources, not for the direct satisfaction of 
 his needs, but as means for producing the things he 
 wishes to consume. ‘These last are, of course, what 
 are called “‘ Consumption Goods.” 
 
 In practice several causes unite to blur these 
 distinctions. In a farm, for instance, it is difficult 
 to draw a clear line between what Nature has 
 supplied and what man has wrought, so “‘ Land” 
 and ‘* Capital”? become confused. ‘There are also 
 many goods which may either be consumed directly 
 or used for the production of other goods; vehicles 
 of all kinds fall into one class when used for pleasure 
 and into the other when serving as part of the 
 machinery of a business. But perhaps the greatest 
 levelling influence has been the developed use of 
 money in all its forms, since all things are convertible 
 into money, and money will buy land, capital or 
 consumption goods alike. In fact, many people 
 have come to regard the possession of unspent money 
 as the same thing as the possession of so much 
 
 137 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 capital, and have confused capital with wealth in 
 general. 
 
 These distinctions are, however, far from being 
 merely theoretical and academic. They have not 
 only great practical significance but, what is more 
 immediately to our purpose, they are of high | 
 importance as regards the moral questions involved. 
 It has been said above that these moral questions 
 are in the main two, the one relating to the right 
 use of things and the other to the right relations 
 with other men, which ownership implies. The 
 latter, however, is really twofold. For besides the 
 effect upon other men of the manner in which the 
 property is used, there is the prior question, since 
 ownership is by definition exclusive, why this man 
 is possessor rather than another. 
 
 Without laying down the law as to any precise 
 system which should be adopted, we are profoundly 
 assured that the widespread evils which shock the 
 conscience to-day, as in varying degree they have 
 always shocked the conscience of right-thinking and 
 feeling people, are due to wrong practices in one or 
 other of these respects. It is by pressing these 
 three questions in relation to the several kinds of 
 property that we shall reach not only a negative 
 criticism to show what is wrong, but the positive 
 indication of the lines upon which a just order of 
 society must be reached. ‘This is, in fact, that 
 “* seeking the reign of God ” which was enjoined by 
 our Lord, so far as this important part of human 
 life and conduct is concerned. 
 
 1. Consumption Goods——The things that men 
 
 use directly for their needs or satisfaction—food, 
 138 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 clothing, houses, furniture, books, pictures, instru- 
 ments for the arts and implements for recreation— 
 may be considered first, as they raise very few 
 questions apart from those which really have their 
 origin in connection with the other forms of pro- 
 perty. It is true that the community, through its 
 authorised representatives, limits the possession of 
 such things as fire-arms, dangerous drugs and what- 
 ever may be in its use a peril to others, or, in extreme 
 cases, to the owner, but any such restriction, as 
 itself imperilling human freedom, requires a very 
 general assent before enforcement. In the same 
 way, although too much of what in due measure is 
 good may be worse for the owner’s health, both of 
 body and soul, than too little, that is for the most 
 part felt to be his own business and not a social 
 concern. Yet in times of dearth, as in the late 
 war, it may be necessary to ration certain things, 
 lest, by the over-abundance of some, others should 
 lack necessities. 
 
 Generally speaking, however, the ability to buy, 
 which means the possession of money, has taken the 
 place of all other justifications for possession. ‘The 
 receipted bill stops all inquiries, in practice. Money, 
 however, is only a medium of exchange. If in one 
 direction it is a token standing for the actual goods 
 or services which can be obtained, it must also 
 stand for what has previously been given. A pur- 
 chase is only half of an exchange. ‘The previous 
 half, in which goods or services were given for the 
 money, is presupposed; otherwise the whole trans- 
 action is unsound. ‘This is why the forging of a 
 note or the uttering of false coin is a crime. It is 
 
 139 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 obvious that every purchase of things for use is a 
 taking from the general store of what has been 
 produced by the joint industry of men, and if no 
 equivalent has been contributed, some strong justifi- 
 cation is required. 
 
 In the case of children, invalids, the aged and the 
 temporarily unfortunate their need is recognised as 
 the justification, though at present in very hap- 
 hazard fashion. ‘That social increment of wealth 
 which owes its being to the fact of associated life 
 and the heritage from the past is the source from 
 which this maintenance can well be drawn, directly 
 or indirectly, and in the long run such maintenance 
 justifies itself even economically. 
 
 Those whose purchasing power is derived from 
 wages and salaries have, of course, already con- 
 tributed in the production of goods or the rendering 
 of services. Whether or not there are serious errors 
 in estimating the relative values of, say, the scavenger 
 who keeps the streets sweet and clean, the teacher 
 who educates the children, the barrister who has a 
 knack of winning verdicts, and the “‘ cinema star,” 
 while of tremendous importance in its own place, 
 does not arise here. ‘These discrepancies, if such 
 they be, are probably dependent upon causes which 
 lie deeper. 
 
 Many incomes, however, and many parts of 
 incomes, are derived from the possession of either 
 Land or Capital or a combination of these. ‘The 
 owners are enabled to appropriate to themselves the 
 finished products of men’s labour in general because 
 they take a share of what the land they own has 
 
 produced, or receive interest or profits from their 
 140 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 capital, apart from any service of management which 
 they may give. It is here that the difficult ques- 
 tions arise. 
 
 2. Capital—The challenge to the present owner- 
 ship of capital has probably a greater force in the 
 unrest of to-day than that to ownership of land. 
 For while by economic definition the latter is not 
 the result of human labour, the former is, and would 
 therefore seem to be quite properly owned, both 
 for use and for exchange, by those who create it. 
 The sharpness of the criticism is probably due to 
 the fact that the workings of the capitalistic system 
 are more directly felt by the majority of people, 
 since these are town-dwellers and engaged in those 
 operations which are directed by owners of capital. 
 The inequalities of wealth are also more directly 
 illustrated in the public view by those who are 
 called “ capitalists *? than by those who derive their 
 income from rents. In fact the term “ capitalist ”’ 
 has become practically synonymous with ownership 
 of wealth, which by the medium of money can be 
 exchanged for land or anything else that is pur- 
 chasable. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the 
 true use of the term “ capital,”? which also has a 
 very much more extended application than to 
 material things. 
 
 In the first instance, capital is that portion of 
 material wealth which is reserved for the production 
 of more wealth. That in modern industry means 
 all the tools, machinery, buildings, means of trans- 
 port, raw and partly manufactured material and 
 the goods necessary to maintain the workers through 
 lengthy processes of manufacture and disposal of 
 
 141 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 produce. In this sense it is clearly an indispensable 
 factor in production in any system that can be 
 devised, and equally clearly a certain proportion of 
 the final product is attributable to its use, as distinct, 
 on the one hand, from that which is supplied by 
 the natural resources, and on the other hand from 
 that which arises from human labour in some form. 
 
 Capital comes into being through men refraining 
 . from spending all their labour and its produce upon 
 immediate satisfactions, and as by our use of money - 
 this is represented by saving, it may be said that 
 the ownership of capital primarily rests with those 
 who spend less than they receive, investing the 
 difference as capital. But this tends to accumulate 
 at an accelerated rate, and as it can be handed on 
 from generation to generation, the disparities in the 
 position of various owners and the non-owners 
 become more and more marked. In extreme cases, 
 where the children of owners of large capital, either 
 through inefficiency or inclination, live on the 
 proceeds of the capital, withdraw their services and 
 live in comfort and luxury without contributing 
 anything in return, a dangerous sense of social 
 injustice is produced. It is true that such owners 
 risk losing what they have, but in a settled country 
 cases of loss are sufficiently rare not to impress the 
 critics of the present system. ‘The same thing is 
 true of many who become rich by a variety of uses 
 of capital which confer no obvious benefit in return 
 for the increased wealth received, but in many 
 instances are a distinct injury to others. 
 
 Somewhere or other elements appear to have crept 
 in which have changed the character of capital 
 
 142 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 and its uses from the simple and blameless form 
 described in elementary economics. ‘This may be 
 illustrated by the well-known saying of Dr. Johnson 
 at the sale of Thrale’s Brewery: ‘‘ We are not here 
 to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the poten- 
 tiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.” 
 The extreme inequalities of wealth have been partly 
 discussed in another section. ‘There is an increasing 
 refusal to believe that these enormous differences 
 can possibly represent corresponding differences 
 either in ability, worth or service to the community, 
 or to listen to a description of the function of 
 capital as a justification for them. Neither will 
 men accept the view that they occur through the 
 immutable operation of economic laws which have 
 nothing to do with morals and defy the control of 
 human thought and administration. What is asked 
 is that serious investigation of cause be made with a 
 view to such rearrangement of economic forces as 
 will produce the desired effect. Otherwise there 1s 
 danger of the sense of injustice leading to a sweeping 
 away of what is good and bad alike in mere destruc- 
 tive attempts after change. 
 
 We venture, therefore, to suggest some of the 
 more obvious points at which injustices have been 
 able to intrude and have been immensely enlarged 
 by the changes from the small to the large-scale 
 industry, and especially by the complexities arising 
 from the drawing together of all parts of the world 
 through modern scientific invention. Just as minor 
 errors in the angles of a house have little practical 
 importance, while much smaller errors in the angles 
 that are drawn in astronomical observations may 
 
 143 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 falsify the result by millions of miles, so errors in 
 just distribution in isolated transactions of a simple 
 kind may become of great moment when the scale 
 and complexity of transactions are enormously 
 magnified. 
 
 In simpler industry a worker owned his own | 
 capital in the shape of his tools. He also produced 
 his wares for the most part to order, and there was 
 no long interval between the making and disposal. 
 To a considerable extent he was the owner of the 
 capital on which he worked, so that problems of | 
 division did not arise. When the division between 
 the worker and the capitalist began, it was in 
 connection with the supply of material for a wider 
 trade, and then questions concerning the pay of the 
 worker and the profit of the trader began to be of 
 moment. ‘The full force of this division was felt 
 when power-driven machinery came into use, so 
 that it was impossible for the worker to supply 
 either the implements or the material of his trade. 
 The division of the result of industry being a matter 
 of bargaining, any disadvantage on the worker’s 
 part would mean that he would have to take a 
 smaller share, and so be unable to save from his 
 wage as much as could be saved from the return to 
 capital. ‘The worker has always been at this dis- 
 advantage, among others, that unless his power is 
 maintained by adequate and continuous means of 
 life, it disappears. ‘The risks which capital incurs 
 are impersonal, and not to be compared with this. 
 Wages also are definite, although the rates may 
 change within limits from time to time; the returns 
 to capital are indefinite. Hence, while there are 
 
 144 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 individual exceptions, there has arisen a very real 
 separation of the classes that work for wages, with 
 few opportunities of sharing in the benefits of capital 
 because their margin for saving is so much smaller, 
 and the classes who may or may not contribute 
 their personal industry in some form, but own the 
 bulk of the capital. ‘“* So far as the Inland Revenue 
 has discovered, five-sixths of the population do not 
 have property of the value of {100” (Professor 
 Henry Clay).+ 
 
 But the returns to capital in modern times do 
 not depend merely on the ownership of actual 
 implements and apparatus of production. A great 
 deal of the success in business depends upon the 
 securing of points of vantage which have been 
 created by social developments; there are ways and 
 methods of securing practical monopolies, partial or 
 complete, some of which are constituted by law, 
 and others by the fact that once the favourable 
 positions are secured there are no others of equal 
 effectiveness. It is no doubt good management 
 which secures these advantages, but it is not clear 
 that adept use of opportunities to obtain results is 
 the same thing as a moral title to those results; or, 
 if it be soin part, to the whole of them. Moreover, 
 as things are working out, it is very largely not to 
 the skilled management that obtains the returns 
 but to capital as such that the returns go. So also 
 do the losses, but on the whole the gains are much 
 the greater. 
 
 Through the high development of “‘ money” a 
 
 1 Henry Clay: Property and Inheritance. If persons under 
 twenty are ignored, the proportion would be three-quarters. 
 
 L 145 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 very considerable portion of modern “ capital ”’ has 
 only a distant reference to actual goods of any kind, 
 but consists of “* abstract wealth,” or the possession 
 of legal rights to money income. Professor Clay 
 has recently said that more than half the property 
 of to-day is of this nature. A certain kind of 
 expertness, which may or may not be of any use to — 
 the community, enables those who possess it, merely 
 by the buying and selling of these rights, to increase 
 their own hold upon them without having created. 
 any increase of actual wealth. In this case it is 
 clear that however legal these proceedings may have 
 been, they must in practice be at the expense of 
 the rest of the community, although no particular 
 persons can be identified as the losers. 
 
 Another aspect of the use of capital is the power 
 over the lives of others which it confers on those 
 who possess it. A modern business enterprise is an 
 association of those who supply the labour, those 
 who bring the directing and organising ability and 
 those who own the capital. The same historic 
 development which enabled the last to reserve all » 
 that was left of profit after expenses had been met 
 has put into their hands also the control of the 
 business, including the conditions under which the 
 hired labourers work and whether they shall or 
 shall not be employed. ‘This last power is usually 
 confined to the particular business owned, but black 
 lists are not unknown, and in any case, in times of 
 general depression to be discharged from one busi- 
 ness is for the most part to stand idle and wageless 
 until trade revives. A great deal of hardship is 
 often caused by the discharge of workers when a 
 
 146 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 business changes hands or a new process is adopted 
 for which it is easier to tratn younger people. ‘The 
 general public also are in many ways affected by 
 this power which is associated with capital. 
 
 An important distinction must be observed here. 
 Labour and management are inseparable from the 
 persons who labour or administer. Capital is 
 separate from personality. ‘There seems to be no 
 reason in the nature of things why management 
 and labour should not own or hire capital instead 
 of the owners of capital hiring labourers and 
 managers. It may be difficult in the present 
 development to bring this about, but it is certainly 
 not impossible and seems to provide a hopeful means 
 of solving some of the moral difficulties. 
 
 The trouble, therefore, does not seem to be in 
 the nature of capital itself, but in the right to its 
 possession, the determination of the return which 
 justly belongs to its possessor and the control of 
 industry which is associated with it. While it is 
 quite beyond our province to suggest in detail the 
 reforms that are needed, we can confidently urge 
 that the whole question of the ownership, rewards 
 and powers of capital can only be solved on moral 
 as well as on true economic principles, and that the 
 best representatives of both ought to be set definitely 
 at work upon the problem. ‘To hope for a solution 
 from the unregulated self-seeking activities, or from 
 industrial warfare, or from the clash of party political 
 strife is to court disaster and invite not only a 
 continuance of suffering and injustice, but a develop- 
 ment which can only be contemplatéd with dismay. 
 
 3. It is in the case of Land that the challenge on 
 
 147 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 moral grounds is sounded most clearly, based upon 
 the undoubted fact that natural resources have not 
 been brought into being by the work of any man, 
 and the parallel fact that without access to natural 
 resources, either direct or indirect, but in any case 
 unbroken, men cannot live by the products of their 
 labour. 
 
 This challenge, of course, is not addressed to the 
 particular people who happen to be landlords at 
 the present time, questioning their title as the 
 present law stands, or alleging that they are per- 
 sonally guilty of appropriating what is not theirs. 
 Many of them have inherited it, and others have 
 purchased it, and if anywhere a title is unsound, 
 that is a matter merely of substituting one owner 
 for another. ‘The deep underlying moral question 
 is whether these natural resources ought to be 
 bought and sold unconditionally, like articles of 
 personal use, and whether they ought to be owned 
 in this way at all. Should the nation conclude that 
 in the interest of the moral order of society another 
 system was imperative, the individual claims of 
 present owners could well be dealt with even 
 generously, provided that the entail of a bad system 
 were cut off. 
 
 The only effective reply to such a challenge 
 seems to be that in the nature of things somebody 
 must own the land, and that on the whole the 
 present system works as well as any other. That 
 would be to assert, in the terms of our previous sec- 
 tion, that it is justified by the use of the land and by 
 the relations of men with each other which ensue. 
 
 Certainly there is great force in the contention 
 148 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 that somebody must own the land, if by this is 
 meant that there must be exclusive use of it. To 
 get anything like the best results from agricultural 
 land there must be one settled and consecutive 
 plan, free from the interference of others, and con- 
 tinuous not only through the seasons but from year 
 to year. This was the great argument for enclo- 
 sures of common land. It is also clear that mineral 
 resources cannot well be scrambled for by everyone 
 who comes along, and when once a house is built 
 upon a site it must from the nature of things exclude 
 other houses so long as it stands. ‘This, however, is 
 an argument for security of tenure for the user, 
 which is not the same thing as that ownership 
 which has the power of selling for a price or letting 
 for a rent, determining the use to which the property 
 shall be put and making conditions limiting its 
 use, and receiving sooner or later any increase in 
 value which has come about through social develop- 
 ments, such as the growth of a town, the building 
 of a railway or the construction of roads for motor 
 traffic. There may, of course, be depreciation in 
 some cases. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the original title was 
 often based upon force rather than right, and there- 
 fore without moral justification, but there were 
 conditions which frequently went far to justify it 
 on the whole by use. Leadership and protection 
 were afforded, and there were well-recognised 
 responsibilities on the part of the lord both to his 
 tenants and to the community. ‘These, however, 
 have long since been commuted by money pay- 
 ments, and land has become increasingly a mere 
 
 149 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 commercial commodity. ‘The tradition of personal 
 obligation is still found where estates have remained 
 in one family for generations, but it is doubtful 
 whether personal landlordship at its best is to-day, 
 because of changed social conditions, capable of 
 discharging such useful and necessary functions as 
 would amount to a moral justification. As it is, 
 <states are more and more being bought and sold 
 with a view to personal advantage or profit only. 
 
 If broad results are examined, in the light of 
 what is said by those most familiar with the present 
 agricultural system and least inclined to “‘ revo- 
 lutionary ” proposals, it is difficult to maintain that 
 the land is used to the best purpose. It is notorious 
 that the great mass of those engaged in agriculture 
 itself, the labourers of different kinds, have a low 
 standard of living compared with the rest of the 
 community, and there is much in their social relations 
 which is hostile to the development of a free and 
 full personality. ‘The farmer employers constantly 
 allege that it is only by paying these low wages or 
 by receiving a subsidy in some shape from the 
 nation that they can carry on at all. The land- 
 owners also assure us that “land does not pay,” 
 and that, as things are, greater profits can be 
 obtained from other investments. No doubt these 
 generalisations would be modified in particulars by 
 their authors, but the general effect remains. 
 Without possible doubt, the condition of the 
 labourers and their families is the very reverse of a 
 justification for the system, and it is also clear 
 from the evidence of agricultural experts that the 
 
 service to the nation as a whole is very far from 
 150 
 
Se 
 
 CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 what it might be as regards production of food and 
 utilisation of the land. 
 
 In the case of minerals and land used for building 
 sites the function of the owner seems to be reduced 
 to little else than the receiving of royalties and 
 rents. There is, at any rate, no obligation upon 
 him to do more, and it can scarcely be claimed that 
 the veto sometimes exercised upon certain uses of 
 the land has been so predominantly good as to be 
 indispensable or unable to be exercised by any 
 other authority. 
 
 The argument from use, therefore, seems to be 
 unimportant and open to counter-argument as to 
 possible greater usefulness through the transfer of 
 the powers of ownership. 
 
 It seems beyond question that there is here a very 
 serious problem, social, moral and practical, which 
 demands solution by the best thought that the 
 nation can bring to it. Those who are already 
 convinced of its importance cannot be said to be 
 agreed as to the particular practical solution, and 
 we do not feel that it is our place to pronounce 
 upon any that have been put forward. Some 
 points which seem clear may, however, be stated, 
 as entering into any satisfactory solution. 
 
 All rights are really inherent in persons and not 
 in things, and have to be justified by the effect of 
 their use upon other persons. The persons con- 
 cerned may be put into three classes. 
 
 (a) Those who occupy the land.—In any settled 
 and developed country exclusion of the indis- 
 criminate entry of others is indispensable for the 
 best results. Even where common use or enjoyment 
 
 ISI 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 is the purpose to which the land is put, some auth- 
 ority must hold it and prescribe the conditions. 
 Those who use the land for purposes which are by 
 nature exclusive must be given the assured posses- 
 sion for this and secured in the enjoyment of all 
 
 results attributable to themselves. . 
 
 (b) Those who are excluded—tIn any settled 
 country the whole of the land available is of course 
 occupied, and it is impossible for everyone to be 
 given direct and immediate use of it. Nor is this 
 either necessary or desirable, since the advanced 
 working of industry requires the co-operation of 
 multitudes in occupations which are derivative. 
 But as these cannot resort to the land for their 
 primary needs of maintenance, they have a moral 
 claim to an assured place in the general industry 
 of the nation, and this claim must ultimately be 
 met morally by the community. 
 
 (c) Lhe general community—Whether paid to an 
 individual or not, there will always be the equiva- 
 lent of ‘rent ”’ corresponding to that part of the 
 resulting product which is due to the superiority 
 of the land in question over the least productive in 
 use. ‘I’his superiority may be due to improvement 
 by labour and capital, and the equivalent value 
 would rightly belong to those to whom it was due. 
 But in’ part it is due to the natural qualities or 
 situation of the land itself and to the existence and 
 activity of the community in general, which would 
 seem to have a moral lien upon the corresponding 
 part of the product. ‘The community also, through 
 its appropriate representatives, has the respon- 
 
 sibility as well as the right of seeing that the best 
 152 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 use is made of the land, whatever the scheme of 
 ownership may be. This is part of a general 
 consideration which applies to other cases besides 
 that of the land. 
 
 It is conceivable that as individual ownership in 
 the past did discharge, in a rough-and-ready way, 
 responsibilities both to tenants and to the nation, 
 through the Crown, it might in some form be satis- 
 factorily adapted to meet the requirements of the 
 present time, but it is clear that this is far from 
 being actually the case. ‘Through the social changes 
 which have arisen, legal rights have increased while 
 responsibilities have decreased. There is urgent 
 need of a clearly-thought-out policy, based on 
 moral principles, and consistently applied. The 
 policy of letting things settle themselves, under 
 the impression that if everyone was left to pursue 
 his own advantage the greatest advantage would 
 be obtained generally, has obviously failed in 
 experience. 
 
 III. InpivipvaL AND COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP 
 
 In the discussions and often the controversies of 
 the present day individual and collective ownership 
 are frequently put into mutual opposition. Accord- 
 ing to the point of view, one is considered to be a 
 good thing in itself and the other bad. ‘There is, 
 however, no ground in the nature of things for this, 
 and the exaltation of either into a fetish merely 
 obscures the true issues and delays a helpful solution 
 of the troubles which are so pressing to-day. 
 
 As a matter of fact, both exist in our own civilisa- 
 
 153 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 tion and both have existed together as far back as 
 can be traced. It is true that, as has been said, 
 the development both of what we call individual 
 personality and of individual property belongs to 
 the development of civilisation, and it is also true 
 that the whole worth of life is found in personality. 
 But it must be observed that while personality is 
 centred in individuals, it is insuperably associated 
 with the development of social life and all the 
 associations and intercourse which flow from it. 
 It is from the enhanced social life which civilisation 
 brings, with its new groupings which always replace 
 the old, that the richness of personality is derived. 
 In it especially the moral and spiritual life finds 
 both its conditions and its fulfilment. Apart from 
 the society of which he is a member the individual 
 is a poor and powerless person. 
 
 Responsibility is the characteristic of the moral 
 personality, and in practice this must be both 
 individual and collective. For there are some duties 
 which cannot be performed by the community for 
 the individual and some that can only be discharged 
 corporately. In so far as property is concerned, 
 these responsibilities are inseparable from ownership 
 in some form, and therefore we find that, despite 
 exclusive theories, individuals, corporate associations, 
 villages, townships, counties and the nation itself 
 hold their appropriate properties and are compelled 
 to do so for the due fulfilment of their functions. 
 
 Nor are the two exclusive of each other so that 
 they merely exist side by side. The community is 
 compelled to delegate the active functions of 
 ownership to certain individuals, and, as has been 
 
 154 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 seen in Section A, all individual rights depend 
 ultimately on the sanction of the community, 
 which prescribes, conditions, limits and enforces 
 those rights. Further, the values of different kinds 
 of property are derived from both individual and 
 social activities. 
 
 It seems quite possible, therefore, for the com- 
 munity and the individual to be in partnership 
 rather than in opposition, even as concerns owner- 
 ship of the same things. For there are different 
 functions of ownership and different degrees, not 
 merely in theory but in actual practice. ‘There are 
 rights of use without rights of sale or other dis- 
 position; rights to receive portions of the produce 
 without the right to control the working; rights 
 for a fixed term or for natural life or with power 
 to hand on to someone else; rights vested in a 
 single individual and rights exercised and enjoyed 
 in common with others. 
 
 It is forgetfulness of this which seems to lead to 
 considerable confusion of thought. Criticism of 
 method of administration is supposed to be valid 
 criticism of ownership itself, as when the national 
 ownership of some monopoly is identified with 
 centralised administration from an office in White- 
 hall which had its origin in quite other needs. 
 There is really no reason why a great industry 
 should not be given self-control, with responsibility 
 to citizen owners instead of to shareholders, if that 
 were found on sufficient grounds to be desirable. 
 On the other hand, criticism of private ownership 
 of businesses which are practically monopolies does 
 not necessarily mean an objection to the personal 
 
 155 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 enterprise which makes experiments and justifies 
 its handling of the property concerned by the 
 public service rendered. 
 
 If, as is maintained by many, the development of 
 personality is bound up with personal ownership of 
 property, the fact already quoted, that according © 
 to Inland Revenue experience five-sixths of the 
 people have no more than {100 worth at most, 
 shows convincingly that our modern society, which 
 has made it almost a religion to favour individual 
 ownership against collective, has somehow missed 
 its own way, and the problem is how to make 
 individual ‘“‘ enterprise’ a reality for the many 
 instead of for the few. The argument that the 
 high positions of wealth and power are open to all 
 who can take them contains the same fallacy as the 
 saying attributed to Napoleon, that every soldier 
 of his had a possible Field-Marshal’s baton in his 
 knapsack. _“‘ Anybody” is not the same thing as 
 “* everybody.” 
 
 Since a system so emphatically based upon a 
 theory of individual ownership has left the vast 
 majority without much ownership to speak of, and 
 stress upon individual freedom has resulted in a 
 tremendous regimentation of men and _ pressure 
 into social strata and industrial types, it is at least 
 worth seriously considering whether there are not 
 collective responsibilities of ownership which are 
 necessary to bring true opportunities of individu- 
 ation to the majority. At any rate the individual 
 use of the roads is freer because of collective owner- 
 ship, and is only endangered when the community 
 
 1 See p. 145. 
 156 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 fails to exercise the control, which is one of the 
 responsibilities of that ownership, upon those 
 individuals who use their superior powers of speed 
 to the hurt of others. It is possible that this is not 
 an extraordinary exception but a typical example. 
 
 What appears to be greatly needed is the laying 
 aside of prejudice and the repetition of catch 
 phrases that there may be a clearer recognition of 
 the powers and responsibilities that really belong to 
 individuals, to groups and to the community as a 
 whole, so that the various kinds of ownership rights 
 may be distributed accordingly. ‘The doctrine of 
 stewardship as applied to property, wholly admirable 
 in itself, presupposes for its working out that the 
 right person is acting as steward. 
 
 IV. Ricuts or INHERITANCE AND BEQUEST 
 
 The practice of inheritance is in some form 
 probably as ancient as property itself, and like the 
 holding of property has never been unconditional. 
 The same causes which have led to the modern 
 tendency to regard property as absolute have 
 naturally tended to displace the laws of inheritance 
 by the right of bequest at the will of the owner, 
 and this tendency has called forth the same counter- 
 objections. The criticism of John Stuart Mill, 
 which had little effect at the time, has been revived 
 in greater force of late. 
 
 To a large extent the objection is that it intensi- 
 fies the evils which have already been examined, 
 notably the accumulation of property in the pos- 
 session of a few and the placing of its privileges in 
 
 157 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the hands of those who may either refuse or be 
 unfit to fulfil its responsibilities. In these respects 
 it seems probable that the removal of what is objec- 
 tionable in present methods of holding property 
 itself would also remove the objection to its transfer 
 at death. Certainly a number of the suggestions _ 
 made have for their purpose limitation rather than 
 abolition, using the occasion of death as an oppor- 
 tunity of correcting undesirable features in the 
 present system. ‘The taking of Death Duties by 
 the State is, of course, a step in the direction of 
 limiting the accumulation and of bringing to the 
 use of the community some part of the wealth which 
 is due to the general social activities already dis- 
 cussed. ‘They do not, however, touch the problem 
 of perpetuating the privilege of receiving income 
 without discharging equivalent responsibilities, or 
 of the placing of persons in positions of power who 
 may not be the best fitted for its exercise. 
 
 What, then, is to become of the property which 
 the man who has died has had to leave behind him? 
 At present it passes either by inheritance or by 
 bequest. 
 
 (a) Lnberitance.—In the law which still survives, 
 governing succession in the case of intestacy and 
 in the custom still expressed in deeds of entail, 
 besides largely governing dispositions at the will of 
 the owner, degrees of relationship determine the 
 proportions in which the property is to be inherited. 
 This, however, raises further questions. In different 
 societies and at different times there have been 
 different systems. In our own land the question 
 
 of which son shall inherit is a matter of geographical 
 158 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 location. A deeper criticism is that blood-relation 
 is in itself no test either of need or of ability to use 
 property rightly. 
 
 On the other hand, inheritance does in some way 
 ensure that those who were rightly dependent on a 
 man during his life shall not fall into want at his 
 death. It is also urged that it acts as a stimulus to 
 aman to provide for hisown. ‘This may be answered 
 by the contention that in a well-ordered state such 
 support of dependent persons ought not to be 
 necessary, but would be afforded in a better way, 
 apart from the chance of their being blood-relations 
 of some propertied man. Still, while conditions 
 hinder the coming of this better way it would seem 
 unwise to sweep away prematurely the present 
 substitute. In any effective endeavour to reach a 
 better social order regard must be had to the 
 sequence in which reforms are made. ‘To do the 
 right thing in the wrong sequence is often indis- 
 tinguishable from doing the wrong thing. 
 
 The provision for genuine needs of a man’s 
 family might be even more rigorously insisted upon, 
 where the means exist. This, however, is quite 
 separable from the handing on the powers which 
 go with property to unfit persons and from aug- 
 menting the accumulation of wealth where such 
 need does not exist. 
 
 (b) Bequest—Here the central question appears 
 to be whether bequest differs from the ordinary 
 gift which is within the giver’s disposal during life, 
 and therefore needs any other restriction or control 
 than governs such transfer. 
 
 (1) The right of bequest carries with it the making 
 
 159 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of conditions to be observed after the testator’s death. 
 This appears to be an extension of power over the 
 lives of others which requires considerable justifica- 
 tion by some undoubted good. Is it possible for 
 a man to be so wise as to foresee the effects of 
 the conditions he has made? He certainly can- 
 not fulfil the responsibility of altering them if — 
 wrong. 
 
 (2) The choice of persons to whom bequest is 
 made seems to be on a different footing from that 
 made in the testator’s lifetime, since he escapes all | 
 the consequences of indulging his preferences, 
 dislikes, prejudices and even spite. It also is asking 
 the State to carry forward his wishes and power 
 over others. 
 
 (3) It is one thing to make a gift during life, 
 taking the consequence of a lessened income for 
 one’s self, and quite another to dispose of what 
 cannot longer be enjoyed personally in any case. 
 
 These considerations establish a very real differ- 
 ence between gift and bequest and go far to justify 
 a much greater control on the part of the com- 
 munity. ‘here is, in fact, an existing provision of 
 law by which bequests that are contrary to public 
 interest can be declared void. ‘This provision 
 might be made more effective by a positive declara- 
 tion of the principles which the common good 
 requires to be observed in the disposition of estates 
 after death. Within these the expressed wishes of 
 the late owner could be regarded without the 
 finality which now attaches, sometimes disastrously, 
 to them, the State and the testator being, as it 
 
 were, partners in the matter. At the same time 
 160 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF PROPERTY 
 
 the law of inheritance might be brought into 
 harmony. 
 
 Such suggestions as that persons already in pos- 
 session of sufficient income should be disqualified 
 from inheritance of further income (material objects 
 of personal association are on a different basis), or 
 limited as to amount; that no one should be 
 entitled to bequests of more than a certain amount ; 
 that distant and obscure claims to inheritance 
 should be void; and that the residue of estates 
 after the allowed claims have been satisfied should 
 be used for redressing the general inequalities, may 
 on their practical side need much and careful 
 discussion, but they are at least addressed to 
 undoubted wrongs and are not lightly to be dis- 
 missed. The evils that exist are not extinguished 
 by destructive criticism of plans for remedying 
 them, and the onus of producing a better remedy 
 falls upon the critics. 
 
 M 161 
 

 
CHAPTER IX 
 EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 

 
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CHAPTER IX 
 EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 Tue industrial system of to-day, while it still 
 bears the marks of its eighteenth-century origin, 
 has been modified and softened in many of its 
 features during the past hundred years. Ever since 
 the first reformers cried “ Halt !”’ to the unchecked 
 march of laissez-faire, attack upon the abuses and 
 injustices of the system has not ceased: if it died 
 down on one side, it was the more hotly renewed 
 on the other. It is true that the greatest reform- 
 ing triumphs have been of the nature of reparation 
 for past wrongs, and that their entire cumulative 
 effect has not yet succeeded in wiping out the 
 effect of those wrongs. But it would be a profound 
 mistake to suppose that because the contemporary 
 industrial world presents a scene of division and 
 conflict, a disturbing inequality of position and 
 reward, and of conditions of labour which at their 
 worst are hostile and at their best unfavourable to 
 the true development of human gifts and character, 
 all the attempts to improve it which, in growing 
 number and with widening scope, fill so large a 
 place in our social record since 1820 have failed to 
 attain their object. The gathering and grouping 
 of the confused inarticulate masses of the industrial 
 
 population of eighty years ago into trade associations 
 165 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of employers and employed—the vast achievement 
 of the Co-operative Movement in organising supply 
 of the workers’ needs on a basis which excluded 
 profit-making in the ordinary sense—the protective 
 action of the State, directed particularly to the 
 safeguarding of the weakest classes of workers, » 
 issuing in Factory Acts, Trade Boards, insurance 
 against sickness and unemployment, old age pensions, 
 supplemented by local government effort for the 
 promotion of health—the schemes and experiments 
 of enlightened employers bent on raising the 
 standard of safety, hygiene and comfort in their 
 works—by all these, in. one way and another, the 
 abuses of the existing industrial system have been 
 mitigated and many of its ugly features softened. 
 Nor is this all. Converging upon their object from 
 widely different angles, all these reform movements 
 bear witness to a growing sense of responsibility in 
 the nation at large for the industry by which and 
 through which it lives. Such a sense may find 
 active expression, as in public support of the cam- 
 paign that sets a new protective law upon the 
 Statute Book, or passive, in the acceptance of the 
 workers’ right to form associations for their own 
 protection, but the spirit in both cases is the same. 
 The moral obligation towards industry is recognised 
 and, however dimly, the spiritual questions involved 
 in its organisation on the human side are admitted. 
 Tentatively and slowly, the industrial worker is 
 emerging from the shadow of the machine which at 
 one time seemed to have engulfed his personality, 
 and standing in his rights as a man, significant on 
 
 the plane of moral value. 
 166 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 I. Trapt Unions ano Emptoyvers’ AssociATIONS 
 
 (We deal here with them only so far as they are 
 related to justice of wages and conditions.) 
 
 We have pointed out that one of the gravest 
 criticisms which have to be made upon the actual 
 system of industry is that it tends to magnify 
 rather than to diminish the elements of conflict in 
 human society. What are we to say, then, as to 
 the character of these great organisations? 
 
 It must be quite frankly recognised that their 
 main purpose is to strengthen the hands of the 
 wage-earners and the employers in the industrial 
 conflict. It is quite true that most Trade Unions 
 provide for mutual assurance in other respects, and 
 yet it would be untrue to the facts to say that these 
 are more than subsidiary purposes. It is as organ- 
 isations for maintaining their respective and often 
 differing interests that we must consider them. 
 
 We are clear in our judgment that just so far as 
 these organisations are used to set forward what 
 men believe to be their just and reasonable demands 
 they are both justifiable and helpful, and that under 
 the present conditions of industrial society they 
 represent a much higher moral conception than that 
 of the isolated man struggling for his individual 
 rights and advantage without reference to the needs 
 and helplessness of his fellows. Self-help is a valu- 
 able principle of life, but mutual help is better. 
 
 For, in the first place, these organisations are not 
 the causes of the industrial conflict, but they repre- 
 sent the antecedent fact; and unless we are to 
 impose upon men the obligation of accepting with- 
 
 167 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 out resistance whatever results the varying distri- 
 bution of economic forces may bring, we cannot 
 without dishonesty condemn the attempts of men 
 to secure what they think to be their reasonable 
 demands. 
 
 In the second place it is now recognised among ~ 
 intelligent people that these organisations have 
 provided the foundation upon which the most 
 successful attempts to establish some elements of 
 mutual understanding and conciliation between 
 employers and wage-earners have been built up. 
 The method of collective bargaining represents an 
 immense advance upon the spasmodic and frequently 
 violent struggles which preceded it. And the 
 establishment of standard conditions of wages and 
 hours has been a real achievement of good sense and 
 reasonableness. 
 
 Il. Action spy Empioyers 
 
 In the improvement of industrial conditions a 
 noteworthy part has been played by enlightened 
 employers, who have deliberately adopted in their 
 works a standard higher than that required of them 
 by law. Factory Acts and Regulations must, of 
 their nature, impose a minimum rather than a 
 maximum of conditions; it rests with the employer 
 to observe laws in the spirit and not merely in the 
 letter, having regard to “‘the intention of the 
 legislator ” in interpreting codes. ‘This is, fortu- 
 nately, done in a number of instances, and the 
 keenest social reformer will admit that the practice 
 
 of the best employers has always been in advance 
 168 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 of contemporary legislation. It is they who make 
 the pioneer experiments which, when their results 
 are subsequently embodied in an amending Act of 
 Parliament, have from time to time raised the general 
 level of factory life. The importance of well- 
 constructed, well-ventilated and well-lighted work- 
 places, equipped and organised with a view to 
 maintaining the operatives who work in them in 
 comfort as well as in health, is now widely recog- 
 nised; welfare schemes, eed most often to the 
 softening of the hardships and the increase of the 
 amenities of factory life, but including also in certain 
 instances provision for continued education and for 
 recreation indoors and out, especially among the 
 young, are growing in number, and would un- 
 doubtedly be much more common but for unfavour- 
 able trade conditions; the principle of Safety 
 Committees, of Works Committees and similar 
 internal organisations by which the workers obtain 
 some share in determining the conditions amid 
 which their working lives are passed begins to gain 
 ground, albeit slowly and not without encountering 
 keen opposition as well as much passive resistance. 
 Some firms give supplementary benefits from profits 
 for superannuation, life assurance, recreation, etc., 
 and this practice is being extended; recently in a 
 few cases annual holidays with pay have become part 
 of the system of working. A beginning has been 
 made of conferences between employers and 
 employed on industrial questions other than those 
 of wages and hours, and in a number of instances 
 the workers now receive much fuller information 
 
 on the general position of the business with which 
 169 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 they are associated than was the case a few years ago. 
 Co-partnership and profit-sharing schemes, while 
 they have failed of any considerable development 
 and seem unlikely to win the approval of the 
 organised worker, may be regarded as experiments 
 in the direction of some form of industrial co- ~ 
 operation, and representative of a reaction from the 
 old inhuman view of labour as a “‘ commodity.” 
 
 There are those who hold that the modern 
 tendency to amalgamation of business and the 
 general establishment of large-scale industry, with 
 the increased powers and opportunities which it 
 gives to Management (as distinguished from simple 
 ownership), will give an impetus to reforming action 
 on the part of employers and make for better 
 conditions in industry asa whole. While recognising 
 the great opportunity for material improvement in 
 industrial conditions which the possession of large 
 capital furnishes to conductors of large-scale business, 
 it appears to us that these are outweighed by the 
 disadvantages attaching to the growth of Combines 
 and ‘Trusts, from the point of view of the citizen, 
 whether as individual worker or consumer. On 
 the other hand, there can be no doubt that, as the 
 industrial world is organised, Employers’ Associa- 
 tions, like Trade Unions, have their proper and 
 necessary place in the organisation. Upon their 
 existence and function collective bargaining in the 
 extended modern sense depends. 
 
 III. THe Co-orerativE Movement 
 
 The term Co-operative Movement is used to 
 
 include two kinds of societies, which are really very 
 170 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 different: (a) Societies controlled by the con- 
 sumers of the goods produced and sold; and 
 (b) Societies controlled by the producers of the 
 goods. 
 
 (a) Of these, the Consumers’ Co-operative Move- 
 ment is at present by far the stronger. ‘* Some- 
 thing like three-sevenths of all the families or 
 households in Great Britain are now enrolled as 
 co-operators. Roughly speaking the Co-operative 
 Movement supplies, to this three-sevenths of the 
 population, one-half of their food-stuffs and one- 
 tenth of their other household purchases. About 
 four million co-operators own and control nearly 
 £100,000,000 of capital.” 
 
 The Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, whole- 
 sale (including manufacturing) and retail, supply 
 a large quantity of goods to a large part of the 
 population; presumably they do it satisfactorily 
 on the whole, since membership is voluntary and 
 they have to face the competition of the ordinary 
 shops. [hey are engaged almost entirely in sup- 
 plying necessaries of life or inexpensive luxuries ; 
 they do not cater for the extravagant tastes of 
 people with large margins of income. Nor does 
 any individual get rich on the process of supplying 
 those needs; the range of salaries is lower than in 
 ordinary private enterprise, and whatever economies 
 are effected result in the benefit of a large number 
 of men and women with small incomes. It is a 
 body of trade which is remarkably stable, since it 
 consists mainly in supplying, and to a large extent 
 manufacturing, necessaries for a known market. 
 The consumer has better facilities for expressing 
 
 {71 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 and enforcing his wishes than the ordinary trade 
 allows, though it must be added that, perhaps from 
 the conditions just mentioned, the goods actually 
 supplied are probably less varied in kind, certainly 
 not more so, than in the ordinary shop. 
 
 Employees enjoy at least as good conditions—it — 
 is claimed, better conditions—as in the correspond- 
 ing private enterprise. None the less there is often 
 friction between the management of the Movement 
 and its employees and their trade unions. 
 
 The Consumers’ Co-operative Movement is often 
 accused of lacking imagination and enterprise, and 
 there would seem to be some substance in the 
 charge. ‘This is sometimes said to be due to the 
 fact that the range of salaries is so narrow; 1. é. 
 that not enough is paid to secure and retain first- 
 class men for its more important posts. On the 
 business side this is probably true. ‘The ‘‘ dividend ” 
 system is also credited with having led to the 
 dimming of those ideals which inspired the early 
 pioneers. On the other hand, the Women’s Co- 
 operative Guild, though it is associated with rather 
 than an integral and official part of the Movement, 
 has done much to promote education in the living 
 issues of the day and to make the Movement as a 
 whole something more than a sharing of trading 
 benefits. 
 
 After all criticisms have been passed, the Con- 
 sumers’ Co-operative Movement remains a very 
 solid and impressive achievement. It demonstrates 
 the practicability of an alternative to capitalist 
 enterprise over a large field, and within its sphere 
 it confers benefits and avoids dangers which are 
 
 172 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 not conferred or avoided under ordinary private 
 enterprise. It is a movement which ought to be 
 regarded with great sympathy and interest by 
 Christians, at the heart of whose religion is the 
 co-operative spirit, and whatever criticism is offered 
 should be with a view to the better expression and 
 embodiment of that spirit. 
 
 (b) Producers’ co-operative societies have not the 
 same history of steady growth. ‘They have been 
 sporadic in appearance and large numbers of them 
 have failed to make good. ‘The total capital em- 
 ployed is certainly well under {1,000,000. It would 
 seem to be a more difficult field of enterprise, 
 requiring a longer and more exacting apprentice- 
 ship, both on the side of business management and 
 in the discipline which is based on mutual trust. 
 It is possible also that since the ultimate purpose of 
 production is to supply the consumers’ needs, no 
 form of co-operation will be quite satisfactory which 
 does not in some way include the consumer. The 
 most successful field of productive co-operation so 
 far seems to have been the boot and shoe industry. 
 
 A recent development, which is being watched 
 with great interest, is the formation of Guilds of 
 Builders and one or two kindred guilds. The aims 
 of these bodies are-to secure the control of the 
 enterprises for those actually engaged in them, to 
 guarantee continuity of employment and to supply 
 the goods at cost price; 7.¢. with no “ profit” 
 other than a reasonable remuneration of capital at 
 a fixed rate. An illuminating sentence expressive 
 of their purpose is, that ‘‘ whereas in the past 
 capital has hired management and labour, labour 
 
 4 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 should now hire management and capital.” It is 
 also claimed that “It is industry organised for 
 service as opposed to industry organised for gain.” 
 
 The National Guild of Builders has carried out 
 some important contracts, and there is a good deal 
 of evidence concerning the excellent quality of its 
 work. Up to the present, however, it has not 
 surmounted the difficulties connected with inefficient 
 business management, internal dissensions and in- 
 sufficient capital. There has been reconstruction, 
 and it is yet too early to foresee whether it will 
 ultimately be vindicated by practical success. ‘There 
 is certainly great room for experiments of this kind. 
 If not destined to solve the entire problem of 
 making our industry co-operative in the full Christian 
 sense, they may at least help us, by their experience, 
 to solve the constituent problem of the share in 
 control which the workers should have and which 
 would bring out their sense of responsibility to the 
 full, so that “‘the team spirit is developed to the 
 maximum extent, because all sections are united 
 for a common purpose—the organised service of the 
 community—and no longer pullin different directions 
 for the disposal of the surplus.” 
 
 IV. RemepiaLt AcTION BY THE STATE AND LOCAL 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Of the forces making for the improvement of 
 industrial conditions during the last hundred years, 
 that of the State has been one of the most powerful. 
 Here we see the national will expressing itself 
 through its representatives in Parliament, at first 
 
 174 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 feebly and tentatively within narrow limits, but, 
 as the years pass and experience grows, with increas- 
 ing boldness and confidence over an ever-widening 
 field. During the forty-five years after the first 
 attack was made (in 1802) on the entrenched doc- 
 trine of laissez-faire, the action of the legislature 
 was mainly confined to the remedying of crying 
 abuses by restriction of the labour first of young 
 children, then of older boys and girls, and finally 
 of women within the area of the textile trades. 
 Progress was slow and achievement frequently 
 disappointing. But after the middle of the century 
 there began a quickening of the pace, as the protec- 
 tion of the Factory Acts was extended to industry 
 after industry and a minimum of health and safety 
 within the factory or workshop established as a 
 condition of employment for all operatives. The 
 law, administered by factory inspectors appointed 
 by the Central Government, became not merely 
 a terror to the bad or unscrupulous employer, but 
 a support to the good, and for the main body 
 between these two extremes a powerful influence 
 to keep them steadfast in the right way. Mean- 
 while, its administrators were observing, testing, 
 studying, carrying out research, and on the strength 
 of their studies and observations it was possible, 
 before the nineteenth century drew to its close, to 
 begin a great forward movement from simple 
 prohibition to constructive principle in the framing 
 of industrial legislation. ‘The ‘“‘ nineties’ saw the 
 initiation of the long series of Regulations for 
 Dangerous ‘Trades which have had so remarkable 
 an effect in checking and eliminating industrial 
 175 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 disease, together with increased activity in devising 
 means for the prevention of industrial accidents ; 
 and both movements continue their course with an 
 energy which experience of war industry has served 
 only to quicken. Latterly, the more personal side 
 of industrial life has been recognised by the issue - 
 of Welfare Orders which take account of simple 
 daily human needs and require provision to be made 
 for them in certain trades. It seems probable that 
 such provision will before long be made a general 
 legal requirement, and a long step in this direction 
 was recently taken in the new Workmen’s Com- 
 pensation Act, under which every occupier of a 
 factory is in future bound to provide First-Aid . 
 equipment. 
 
 Factory Acts have not cured all the evils inherited 
 from the period of merciless competition and 
 unregulated conditions which followed on the 
 industrial revolution. ‘Those evils had a long start 
 of the remedies which, late and haltingly, it was 
 sought to apply to them, and for some eighty years 
 the remedies were mainly of the nature of repara- 
 tions, and scarcely sought a positive good. Even. 
 in the present more constructive period the office 
 of law will and must be to provide rather a firm 
 foundation on which Christian idealism may build, 
 than the building which it would erect. But as a 
 foundation industrial laws are indispensable; they 
 make of national application standards which would 
 otherwise remain limited to groups. 
 
 The duty of the State to secure for all workers 
 tolerable, safe and healthy conditions of labour, 
 
 and to protect particular classes of workers in respect 
 176 
 
EFFORTS TOWARDS REFORM 
 
 of hours of employment, has long been an accepted 
 principle in Great Britain. More recently, its help- 
 ing hand was found needful in the nation’s effort to 
 free itself from the reproach of acquiescence in the 
 sweating of the weakest and most helpless of its 
 manual labourers by systematic underpayment. 
 Hence the institution of Trade Boards, which 
 has done much to mitigate hardships formerly a 
 permanent feature of many of the unorganised 
 trades, and to give new hope, courage and self- 
 respect to some two millions of toiling persons, 
 of whom the majority are women. 
 
 Of later growth still are the systems of National 
 Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance. 
 These systems have their vulnerable points, their 
 debatable provisions; they present targets for 
 criticism. But their beneficence in modifying the 
 effect upon the industrial worker of sickness or 
 worklessness is not in doubt. Work is better than 
 unemployment benefit. Yet even those who miscall 
 that benefit a “‘ dole,’’ even those who must recognise 
 regretfully the loss of skill and moral that follow on 
 the eating, however unwillingly at the outset, of 
 the bread of idleness, will not refuse to admit that a 
 system which preserves a man’s home and neither 
 separates him from his family nor condemns him 
 to see them suffer abject want when the cyclical 
 fluctuation of trade or the economic results of a 
 Great War throws him out of his job, has merits, 
 from a Christian point of view, which are not to be 
 found in deterrent Poor Relief. | 
 
 Factory legislation, minimum wage rates, insur- 
 ance against sickness and unemployment, workmen’s 
 
 N 177 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 compensation for accidents—such are the chief 
 methods by which the State, acting for the nation 
 as a whole, has sought directly to mitigate the 
 pressure upon the worker of the competitive system 
 of industry. More indirectly it has aided him by 
 giving elementary education to his children, and. 
 enabling him in certain circumstances to improve 
 his own; and it has empowered the local authority, 
 where the latter is so minded, to extend these 
 advantages in various directions. Progressive local 
 authorities have availed themselves of their powers, 
 and the result is seen in Evening Institutes and 
 Technical Schools, in Medical Inspection of Schools 
 and School Clinics, in the work of Health Visitors 
 and Shop Inspectors, and the making of by-laws 
 for the employment of children! under the Educa- 
 tion Act. The Advisory Committees on Housing 
 appointed by local authorities are likewise doing 
 something to raise the standard of houses to be 
 built for industrial workers, and to combat that bad 
 habit of overcrowding which has been with us ever 
 since the setting up of the modern factory system 
 drew operatives in tens of thousands to towns 
 unprepared to receive them. 
 
 1 Otherwise than in factories and workshops. 
 
 178 
 
CHAPTER X 
 PERSONALITY AND THE CHRISTIAN ORDER 
 
ara 
 
 47 
 
 
 
CHAPTER X 
 PERSONALITY AND THE CHRISTIAN ORDER 
 
 We have endeavoured to set out some of the 
 graver defects of our system on industry as we see 
 it to-day, and we have been compelled to point 
 out that in some very important aspects, our 
 system of industry and property has produced, and 
 is producing, results which are profoundly discon- 
 certing to any men and women who do not allow 
 their moral sensitiveness to be blunted and their 
 moral judgment to be perverted by mere use and 
 habit. We must now consider how the conceptions 
 of human life which are characteristic of Christianity 
 are related to these conditions and their causes. 
 It would no doubt be possible to enumerate many 
 Christian principles, but for our present purpose it 
 is enough to consider two. 
 
 The first is the immeasurable value of the indi- 
 vidual personality to God and therefore to honest 
 men. ‘This is the real meaning of the conception 
 of human equality, and this is the first and funda- 
 mental Christian conception of human life. And, 
 therefore, the first. test by which all social con- 
 ditions must be tried is just this—do they make 
 possible the realisation of human personality, or, 
 at least, do they tend towards this? ‘The concep- 
 
 tion which the Christian faith cannot tolerate is 
 181 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the conception that the personality of the many 
 can be sacrificed to the development of the few. 
 It is indeed probable that it is only a few, and 
 these negligible and merely eccentric people, who 
 would venture to maintain this in theory, but it is 
 perhaps the gravest charge which can be brought 
 against the present economic organisation of society 
 that this is, in fact, its result. 
 
 We are not here concerned with the historical 
 question how far this tendency is more or less 
 developed in modern rather than in ancient and 
 medieval society. It is true that the disappearance 
 of slavery and serfdom represent some real advance, 
 but it is also obviously the case that, under the 
 present economic conditions, the freedom and the 
 development of a comparatively small number seem 
 still to coexist with the narrow and squalid condition 
 of many. ‘This does not need any argument; after 
 all the West End of London is small, the East is 
 enormous, the “‘ Iwo Nations,” as they have been 
 called, are still separated from each other by a 
 great gulf, not of distance but of conditions. And 
 the conditions are, in fact, such that in many cases © 
 they render the development of the human person- 
 ality practically impossible, and in others at least 
 very difficult. 
 
 Personality, moreover, does not merely signify 
 equality, but it requires liberty, and it is the defect 
 of liberty which is the second of the gravest criticisms 
 that must be directed against the present system of 
 economic society. ‘The mere thoughtless defenders 
 of the present system have sometimes the courage 
 
 to maintain that they are defending what is at least 
 182 
 
PERSONALITY 
 
 a system of liberty; while the real weight of the 
 charge against the essential character of the present 
 system is that it is exactly liberty which it tends in 
 a large measure to destroy. What its defenders 
 mean by liberty is really power, the power of some 
 over others, of the few over the many. It is the 
 artificial power which the ownership of capital gives 
 which is the gravest difficulty of society, for it is 
 this which interferes in such a disastrous way with 
 the freedom of individual personality. And the 
 Christian faith which demands the recognition of 
 the immeasurable value of the individual, demands 
 also the recognition of the freedom of the individual. 
 This does not mean that any reorganisation of the 
 method of social order will of itself secure the free- 
 dom of the individual; but it is true that a reason- 
 able order will furnish the foundation on which 
 individual freedom may be built. 
 
 It is idle to maintain that the pursuit of this is 
 impossible.. The history of political civilisation is the 
 history of the substitution, in the name of liberty, 
 of the common control for the control of the indi- 
 vidual; and it is merely an unthinking foolishness 
 which would maintain that what the intelligence of 
 man has been slowly building up in the political 
 world is impossible in the economic. 
 
 If the first principle of the Christian conception 
 of human life is the immeasurable value of the 
 individual and his function, the second is that the 
 relations of these individual men and women are 
 those of members of a society of mutually dependent 
 beings. That is, that men live, not by conflict, 
 
 but by mutual help, and in virtue of that mutual 
 183 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 love which is not merely the ideal but the founda- 
 tion of life. ‘They are, in the principle of Christ, 
 the children of one Father, of one household and 
 community, members of the one body of Christ. 
 Fellowship, mutual love and service, then, are life; 
 enmity and conflict are death. 
 
 This is another of the grave criticisms of our 
 modern economic society, that, whatever may have 
 been its results in the production of wealth, it has 
 signally failed in this, that it has rather intensified 
 than mitigated the tendency to conflict. The 
 older order of society, whether ancient or medizval, 
 had its own vices, slavery or serfdom, an incredible 
 squalor and poverty in many cases, an almost un- 
 thinkable brutality and cruelty, but at least it was 
 controlled by a system of custom and law which 
 men conceived of as the embodiment of some moral 
 idea which they called justice, while modern 
 economic society presents the appearance of an 
 organised conflict. It was apparently from the 
 accepted economic doctrines of the earlier part of 
 the nineteenth century that modern biological 
 science derived the conception of life as dominated 
 by the struggle for existence, the law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest. ‘These conceptions may have 
 their just place in biological science, but biology 
 is not the whole science of humanity. The conflict 
 of interests, the blind struggle of men against each 
 other for subsistence or gain, these are real char- 
 acteristics of modern society in its economic aspect, 
 but they are the characteristics of life below the 
 human level, of the merely animal, not of the really 
 
 human life. They are inhuman and anti-Christian. 
 184 
 
PERSONALITY 
 
 It is no use trifling with these things, it is no 
 use pretending that they are inevitable accidents 
 of human life, for the truth is that these only 
 represent the existence of merely animal character- 
 istics, characteristics against which reason as well 
 as humanity have perpetually and on the whole 
 victoriously struggled. And so far as men claim 
 to be Christian people, they must make clear to 
 themselves that these things are contradictory to 
 the principles of Christ, and that Christian men 
 must bend their energies to the transformation of 
 their animal, their bestial life into a human and 
 divine life. The truth is that the faint-hearted 
 defence of these conditions which is sometimes 
 made even by men who claim to be Christian, is 
 founded upon a simple-minded but dreadful con- 
 fusion between the merely animal life, which is in 
 man, and the human life, which is his proper char- 
 acter, and the notion that these must correspond 
 with each other; on the contrary, the “ ethical 
 process,” as it has been called by Prof. Huxley, does 
 not correspond with the “cosmic process,” but 
 often opposes it, runs counter to it, contradicts it. 
 
 We are no longer under the influence of that 
 curiously unscientific illusion of the eighteenth 
 century, that if each man will but follow his indi- 
 vidual interest or advantage, it will result in the 
 advantage of all. A century of industrial and social 
 conflicts, of factory conditions and Factory Acts, 
 lies between us and these fantastic dreams, and we 
 know very clearly that if we are to attain to peace, 
 if we are to establish mutual help and co-operation, 
 we can only do it by careful thought and resolute 
 
 185 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 effort, by deliberately and consciously setting before 
 ourselves the common good as the end and purpose 
 of human life. 
 
 And, the method of this is the method of the 
 common control of society over the economic 
 aspect of human life. It is a singular blindness to — 
 history which seems to prevent some otherwise 
 intelligent people from understanding that this 
 has been exactly the method of progress in the 
 general social and political organisation of society. 
 It has been by the gradual extension of the common 
 control over the individual passions and desires in 
 the ordering of the common life that we have 
 secured such a measure of peace as we enjoy, and 
 it is only by the same method that we can hope 
 to attain to peace in the economic world. 
 
 And peace, mutual help, co-operation, mean not 
 only peace but liberty, for there is no conception 
 of liberty which is quite so illusory as that which 
 would identify it with isolation; man is not free 
 when he is cut off from his neighbour, but only the 
 helpless creature of circumstance, the slave of 
 human impotence. 
 
 Our industrial and economic society is then, from 
 the standpoint of Christian principle, in these most 
 important respects, not merely defective, but 
 vicious and radically unchristian, and we must each 
 forward and labour for, not a mere mitigation of 
 these evils by the use of palliatives, but for a funda- 
 mental though no doubt gradual transformation of 
 its character and organisation. It is this which the 
 Christian society must learn, and it is the failure on 
 
 the part of Christian society to face this which has 
 186 
 
PERSONALITY 
 
 made some men doubtful whether Christianity has 
 any contribution to make to social progress. 
 
 The Christian societies maintain, and rightly, 
 that their main function as critics of life is to protest 
 against materialism, but the materialism which really 
 threatens religion is not an intellectual materialism 
 which is already out of date, but the practical 
 materialism of the common order of society in its 
 economic aspect. The function of the Christian 
 societies is to represent the human, that is, the 
 spiritual quality of human nature, and to prepare 
 the way for the embodiment of this in the common 
 order of life. 
 
 187 
 

 
CHAPTER XI 
 CONCLUSION 
 
Soe 
 
 ae 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Tue result of our inquiry is saddening. It brings 
 out very clearly the dangerous and in many ways 
 disastrous consequences which have ensued from 
 the rapid advance in the use of those very forces 
 which should have benefited the whole society. 
 The immense industrial development of the nine- 
 teenth century has no doubt enriched society as a 
 whole, but at the cost of the growth of a most 
 calamitous social conflict, inseparably connected 
 with conditions of life which the conscience of the 
 nation is finding increasingly insupportable. 
 
 But while this is true, it is also true that the 
 prospects are not hopeless nor the conditions 
 irremediable. ‘The analysis of these conditions will 
 have served to show in some measure where the 
 causes lie and that it is not impossible to deal with 
 them. In the previous chapter it has been shown 
 that some real progress has already been made in 
 dealing with them. 
 
 The important thing, if we are not to lose our- 
 selves in the detail of actual effect and partial 
 achievement, is to ask what has been the main 
 force to which such reforms as have been made are 
 due. We are convinced that this is much simpler 
 as well as more far-reaching than is often thought. 
 
 Ig! 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 It is really nothing else than the recognition that 
 the moral and spiritual—what we as Christians 
 would call the religious—principles of society have 
 rightly claimed both the responsibility and the 
 authority to check and to direct the working of 
 economic forces, so far as these are susceptible of 
 human control. It was because the development 
 of physical and scientific knowledge outran such 
 moral control that the disastrous mis-shaping of 
 society came to be, and it is only by the restoration 
 of its authority that they can be used for well-being 
 instead of detriment. 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that it was 
 the revolt of the moral sense of the community | 
 against the conditions of labour, especially of women 
 and children, in factories and mines which compelled 
 Parliament to enact the various measures of Factory 
 Legislation. It is worthy of note that it was Lord 
 Shaftesbury’s passionate religious conviction as well 
 as his humanity which constrained him to take up 
 and carry through the work which had been begun 
 by the humane genius of Robert Owen and others. 
 There were indeed many who honestly feared that 
 the demands of the moral and spiritual conscience 
 would be ruinous to our economic prosperity, but 
 the common judgment of the nation determined 
 that the risk should be run. As it proved, the risk 
 was illusory. 
 
 It is the same principle which has compelled 
 Parliament to set up minimum wage boards for the 
 protection of the economically weaker members 
 of the community; again with results which in 
 the main seem to show the system to be practicable. 
 
 192 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 It is the same with the slow and hesitating but on 
 the whole continuous development of the treat- 
 ment of the housing problem and that of unemploy- 
 ment, as something for which the whole community 
 must accept the responsibility and of which it must 
 directly or indirectly bear the burden. 
 
 It is on the same principle that the future action 
 of the community must be based. This, in our 
 judgment, is of central and vital importance; the 
 supreme claims of the Kingdom of God and the 
 world’s need of deliverance coincide. ‘The principle 
 must, however, be applied definitely, intelligently 
 and persistently if it is to do its effective work: 
 definitely, in that it is directed to clear objectives ; 
 intelligently, in that it does not confuse moral 
 purpose with practical achievement; persistently, 
 in that it does not depend upon the fitful stimulus 
 of some more than ordinarily shocking reports but 
 steadily presses on to the goal. What we are con- 
 cerned with is that the moral and religious sense 
 of the community should refuse, should utterly and 
 persistently refuse, to be satisfied until effective 
 methods of peace and co-operation shall have 
 brought to an end this deplorable and disastrous 
 conflict. For this world of conflict and of the 
 dreadful consequences of conflict is not a Christian 
 world, and the only hope of making it Christian 
 is to express in the circumstances and regulation 
 of its common life the principles of justice, of 
 mutual help, of mutual love, that thus haply it 
 may attain to peace. 
 
 As to definite objectives, the examination we have 
 made brings several into strong relief. 
 
 O 193 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 . The ultimate aim of Christians with regard to 
 industry and commerce should be the substitu- 
 tion of the motive of service for the motive of 
 gain. 
 . Industry should be a co-operative effort adequately 
 to supply the needs of all. This does not 
 involve one particular type of organisation 
 universally applied. It does involve a per- 
 petual effort to find the organisation best suited 
 to each industry. 
 . Industry should be so organised that all is 
 engaged in it shall have an increasingly 
 effective voice in determining the conditions 
 of their work and lives. | 
 . Ihe first charge on industry should be a 
 remuneration sufficient to maintain the worker 
 and his family in health and dignity. 
 . The evils of unemployment are intolerable to 
 the moral sense. The causes must be sought 
 and removed. 
 . Extremes of wealth and poverty are likewise 
 intolerable. A Christian order involves a 
 quster distribution. 
 . Ihe moral justification of the various rights 
 which constitute property depends on the 
 degree to which they contribute to the develop- 
 ment of personality and to the good of the 
 whole community. If such rights subserve 
 those purposes they deserve the approval of 
 Christians: if not, they should be modified or 
 abolished. 
 . The duty of service 1s equally obligatory upon 
 all. No inherited wealth or position can 
 194 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 dispense any member of the Christian society 
 from establishing by service bis” claim to 
 maintenance. 
 
 Finally, as Christians speaking to Christians, what 
 contribution can we make by virtue of that faith 
 which we share? We have to remember two things. 
 
 (a) Social responsibility arises when from the 
 nature of things individuals as such cannot do what 
 is needed. 
 
 (b) This social responsibility is not antagonistic 
 to individual initiative. It has as its object the 
 fuller life and personality of the individuals who 
 compose society. It is through social law and 
 organisation that individuals possess what scope 
 for initiative they enjoy and are given what freedom 
 they already have from the encroachments of more 
 forceful individuals. The real opposition is not 
 between social action and no social action, but 
 between what effects its purpose and what misses it. 
 
 From this it surely follows that as Christians we 
 eke work for : 
 
 . Lhe awakemng of ny spirit—No organisation 
 can oe of use unless first shaped and then energised 
 by the living conviction and purpose of men. 
 History shows that legislation or administration too 
 much in advance of public opinion is at least in- 
 effective and sometimes harmful. ‘This means that 
 those who believe in the Kingdom of God and pray 
 for its coming must both be in earnest about it 
 themselves and make others enthusiastic in the true 
 sense. ‘This is an essential part of the mission-work 
 of the Church at large. 
 
 195 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 2. The embodiment of the spirit.—tlf organisation 
 cannot work successfully without the power of the 
 spirit, neither can spirit without an adequate organ. 
 We believe that there is already much of this spirit 
 of justice and good-will, but the existing organ- 
 isation does not give it scope, even thwarts it. As 
 Christians we must co-operate to reshape this 
 organisation in accordance with God’s will and 
 purpose. , 
 
 3. The supremacy of God’s Kingdom.—This calls 
 for a more devoted determination to pour into the 
 common life the spirit that is detached from self, 
 family, sectional or party interest and devoted to 
 the Will of God, which is the good of all. If 
 anything stands out clearly to-day, it is that the 
 policy of self-interest has brought and is bringing 
 ruin in its train. We need to visualise more 
 earnestly an industrial society in which the good 
 of all is truly the ruling principle, not so much 
 destroying other motives as bringing them under 
 proper control to this end. We must recognise 
 that while it may not be a sin to possess more 
 material goods than others of our fellows, since 
 this may have come about through no injustice 
 on our part, even through qualities that in them- 
 selves are really social, it 25 a sin to obstruct changes 
 which might, in making the industrial system more 
 just, reduce the sum of our own possessions. 
 
 This great transformation for which we look, 
 from conflict to peace, from chaos to order, from 
 morally repugnant to just conditions, may not be 
 wrought by sudden and violent change, but by a 
 
 gradual process in which the old forms which have 
 196 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 served their purpose and seem ready to die will pass 
 into others which are new and living, fit to serve as 
 instruments of the spirit of liberty and brother- 
 hood working towards the goal of a common good. 
 But we may not flatter ourselves that even if the 
 change is gradual it will be smooth and painless. 
 Difficulties and dangers attend its progress; for us 
 who desire to aid that progress there are renuncia- 
 tions to be accepted, sacrifices to be made. ‘Those 
 who would re-make our industrial world to the 
 pattern of the Kingdom of God must endure the 
 sense of loss and face the complex risks that all 
 great changes bring with them; not otherwise will 
 the work be done. The enterprise is serious, calling 
 for high courage and a steady faith—surely the very 
 gift which the followers of Christ should be able to 
 bring to the service of their fellow-men. 
 
 Signed: CoNnsTANcE SmitH (Chairman). 
 
 Cuas. G. Ammon. 
 J. D. Brrewatt. 
 Bie ty CARLY bas 
 Maurice CuHILp. 
 James CUNNISON. 
 Davip FyYrre. | 
 Mary Sturce GRETTON. 
 J. J. Matton. 
 Henry A. Mess. 
 E. Rossuyn MuIrTcHELt. 
 Max Muspratt. 
 
 . Joun W. Ocpen. 
 GerorceE Paisu. 
 Mary E. Puitiirs. 
 
 19/7 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 WILLIAM PIERcyY. 
 
 L. G. PILKINGTON. 
 
 Henry H. Suesser. 
 
 WILLIAM STRANG. 
 
 C. Stuart SMITH. 
 
 R. H. Tawney. 
 
 Ben ‘TuRNER. 
 
 Ancus WATSON. 
 
 W. B. Yares. 
 
 Wit Reason (Hon. Secretary). 
 
 The members of the Commission, who, having 
 co-operated in the preparation of the above Report 
 attach their signatures, do so as individuals and in 
 no way commit the Churches or Societies of which — 
 they are members. ‘The acceptance of the Report 
 by a signatory denotes agreement with the general 
 substance of the Report, but not necessarily with 
 every detail. 
 
 Note.—The Commission during the earlier stages 
 of its work had the advantage of the help of the 
 Rev. R. H. Murray, Litt.D., who, however, desires 
 to dissent from some of the conclusions embodied 
 in the Report. | 
 
 Note of Dissent—Having served as Catholic representative on 
 this Commission I am unfortunately unable to sign the report, 
 for the following reasons :— 
 
 1. That while appreciating the conciliatory spirit shown as 
 regards concessions of phraseology, I feel that no sufficient dis- 
 tinction has been drawn between the fundamental right of the 
 individual or family to property (which Catholic writers base on 
 human needs), and the right of the State to control-the distribution 
 of property, which arises from its duty to correct injustice and its 
 right to levy taxes on the ground of services rendered, and in view 
 of the common good. 
 
 198 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 2. That the stress laid on “ equality ” is liable to grave mis- 
 interpretation incompatible with Catholic principles. 
 
 3. That the blame for our present difficulties does not lie wholly 
 with Employers, Proprietors and Industrialists. 
 
 4. That some mention should have been made of the dangers 
 arising from extremist and revolutionary propaganda.—(Signed) 
 ApA STREETER. 
 
 199 
 
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APPENDIX 
 
 THE POPULATION PROBLEM AS AFFECTING 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 NOTE.—The following is a Report from a sub- 
 committee of the Commission. It was felt that tts 
 incluston would overweight the Report itself and that 
 it would be more valuable as an Appendix for reference. 
 
 It should be clearly understood that questions 
 concerning the morality of methods of birth-control 
 are definitely excluded from its scope. 
 
 We are grateful to Dean Inge, Principal Garvie, 
 Mr. ff. A. Hobson and Mr. Harold Wright for reading 
 the Report and sending valuable comments. This, 
 of course, implies no responsibility on their part for 
 any of the contents, but they have all expressed general 
 agreement with the main conclusion. 
 
 Tue modern study of biology, especially in respect 
 of heredity and the principle of “ natural selection,” 
 has raised serious questions which those who are 
 working for a Christian order of society cannot 
 wholly ignore. To many minds these constitute 
 a challenge both as to the wisdom and as to the 
 practicability of those efforts which are most 
 Christian in spirit, such as the removal of the 
 conditions of overcrowding, insanitation, want and 
 bad nurture in general which now result in the 
 destruction of so many infant lives. However well 
 intentioned, it is said, in the first place, these efforts 
 
 merely result in the keeping alive of the unfit, so that 
 203 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 on arriving at mature age they bring into the world 
 more children of the same inferior stock. This 
 prevents any improvement, and as the worst stocks 
 seem in practice to be most prolific, it will in all 
 probability bring about an actual lowering of the 
 standard as regards quality. It is argued that, 
 repugnant as are the bad conditions to that spirit 
 of love which is the essence of Christianity, they do, 
 by eliminating the unfit, tend to raise the standard 
 of health and hardiness among those who survive. 
 This challenges the wisdom. The practicability 
 is impugned on the ground that the removal of 
 these “‘ checks to population ” would in themselves 
 lead to such an increase in population as would 
 outrun the existing means of living, and the general 
 raising of the standard of living would both limit 
 the amount available for each family and encourage 
 larger families at the same time. The net result 
 would be to bring us back to the old conditions 
 of penury for the mass of the people. 
 
 If this argument should prove to be sound against 
 all criticism we should be hopelessly involved in a 
 vicious circle. Worse still, for those whose hearts 
 and minds must necessarily answer loyally to the 
 revelation of God in Jesus Christ, there would be 
 an insoluble contradicton between what God 
 requires and what He makes possible to us. ‘The 
 life of good-will and service would be spiritually 
 compelling but practically impotent. The evil 
 of the present world order would be not so much 
 in the human conduct which runs counter to the 
 true nature of things as in that nature of things 
 itself. 
 
 204 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 The difficulty might be met by a faith strong 
 enough to go on caring for the little ones in the 
 confidence that where the demands of the spirit 
 conflict with what seem to be truths of science we 
 must have made a mistake about the science. Yet 
 this is hardly satisfactory; however imperfect our 
 grasp of the laws of nature may be, what knowledge 
 we can get must be our guide in carrying out what 
 the spirit demands. We must therefore make an 
 attempt to discover where, if anywhere, the reasoning 
 is wrong and what is the actual truth that was 
 misconceived. 
 
 I. Tue Facts 
 
 First, do social facts agree with the argument? 
 During the last thirty or forty years a good deal of 
 careful investigation has been carried out, and in 
 the later years it has been possible to formulate 
 some definite conclusions which are germane to the 
 present inquiry. 
 
 1. As regards quality.The evidence to be found 
 in such documents as the Report of the Inter- 
 departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration 
 (Cd. 2210, 1904), the Annual Reports of the Chief 
 Medical Officer of the Board of Education and 
 investigations like that of Mr. Arthur Greenwood 
 into the “‘ Health and Physique of School Children ”’ 
 (Ratan Tata Foundation), makes it clear that the 
 height, weight and general physique of boys and 
 girls are at their lowest in those social grades where 
 conditions of poverty are most intense, and that they 
 improve in direct ratio with SHR sah in these 
 
 conditions. 
 205 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 The facts reported by Medical Officers of Health 
 
 show that the general “‘ expectation of life ” varies 
 in similar fashion according to the same conditions, 
 from district to district. 
 
 The infant mortality rate also varies directly 
 with these same conditions. 
 
 So far, therefore, from finding a healthier and 
 sturdier race in those parts where there is the 
 greatest “‘ elimination of the unfit,’ we have to 
 accept the fact, however it may be explained, that 
 the reverse is the case. ‘The best physique is found 
 where everything is done by ampler resources and 
 medical science to keep the weaklings alive. 
 
 2. As regards numbers—Here again there is no 
 doubt whatever that it is not from the more com- 
 fortable and prosperous sections of the nation that 
 the great increase in population comes. ‘There is, 
 in fact, a failure to maintain their numbers without 
 recruiting. On the other hand, it is just where the 
 destructive social forces take their heaviest toll of 
 infant life that there is the greatest increase of 
 survivors, because the birth-rate is relatively higher 
 still. ‘The poor not only increase their own numbers 
 but their abundance makes good a persistent deficit 
 in the upper social strata.t 
 
 1 “ The births in England and Wales in 1911, per 1000 married 
 
 men under fifty-five years of age, classified according to the occu- 
 pation of the father, were as follows : 
 
 1. Upper and middle class : ; aes a 
 z. Intermediate . ; ; OWA 
 3. Skilled workmen ; 24) oe 
 4. Intermediate. ; ie 
 5. Unskilled workmen. 213 
 
 (Population, Harold Wright, p- 154.) 
 206 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 Those are the facts from which we have to work 
 to the explanation, without begging the question 
 as to what that explanation may be. 
 
 Il. Tue Prospiem or Quatity 
 
 1. “ Fitness” and quality —One of the first things 
 to be made clear is that there is commonly a con- 
 fusion as to the use of the term “ fit,” which does 
 not carry the same implications in biology as in 
 sociology. Among biologists “ fitness’ stands for 
 any characteristic whatsoever that enables a species 
 to survive in the particular set of conditions into 
 which its members are born. ‘There is no sense of 
 superiority about it, either physically or morally. 
 It may be strength, but it may also be merely 
 inconspicuousness ; it may be fineness of perception 
 of the sense organs or a flavour that is disagreeable 
 to possible devourers; it may be highly developed 
 parental care of the young or a fecundity that 
 ensures some survivors in spite of extraordinary losses. 
 Because it is a development that fits the environ- 
 ment, it is clear that the environment itself largely 
 determines the character that fits it. 
 
 Wesee, therefore, that there is nothing in biological 
 science to support the notion that a slum environ- 
 ment which slaughters great numbers of the incoming 
 children must therefore select for survival the best 
 men and women. It only selects those families 
 that are most adapted to survive in slum conditions. 
 If we knew nothing about it from experience, we 
 
 should certainly surmise that foul atmosphere, 
 207 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 relative darkness, poor food and insanitary surround- 
 ings could not possibly select the finest specimens 
 of beings that responded best to sunshine and fresh 
 air, good feeding and cleanliness. As a matter of 
 fact, experience amply confirms this surmise. 
 
 There has probably been another confusion 
 between natural selection and the selection made by 
 human intelligence when breeding plants and animals 
 with the purpose of developing certain character- 
 istics that are desired. ‘This is a selection of quite 
 another kind, and in so far as the environment comes 
 into the question it is not arranged for destruction 
 but for helping the development of the qualities 
 desired. ‘The rejected are destroyed by the same 
 intelligence that has selected the characteristics and 
 by deliberately planned methods. ‘These methods 
 have been applied to human breeding, e. g. by the 
 Spartans and some other peoples, but, in the form 
 of direct destruction at least, they can hardly be 
 adopted by civilised nations, and certainly not by 
 Christians. It would mean the selection of certain 
 characteristics in the selectors themselves that are 
 by no means the finest in human nature. Whether 
 means consistent with the best humanity can be 
 found by which those whose undesirable physique 
 is transmissible by heredity are restrained from 
 bringing children into the world is another question. 
 What concerns us here is that indiscriminate 
 slaughter by a bad environment is worse than 
 useless. It does not select in the direction required 
 and it damages the survivors. 
 
 2. Heredity and tradition—Mr. A. M. Carr- 
 
 Saunders, himself a leading eugenist who has made 
 208 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 very thorough research into “the Problem of 
 Population”? (1922), points out that while the 
 improvement of the physical characteristics of a 
 race can only be achieved by selection, the thing 
 that matters most is not heredity but “ tradition.” 
 That is a social heritage and consists of the accumu- 
 lated knowledge, method, organisation, standards 
 of judgment and appreciation and so forth upon 
 which the achievements of individuals depend. 
 What an individual can become and do is determined 
 chiefly by this tradition itself and the degree in which 
 he is brought into living relation with it. He holds 
 that the superiority of the civilised races consists 
 practically altogether in this developed “‘ tradition,” 
 and thinks that many of the tests which seem, for 
 example, to show the individual superiority of the 
 white race over the black are open to grave suspicion 
 through having been made by the white under 
 conditions that weight the balance against the black. 
 In any case it is clear that within the white race vast 
 numbers are brought up in a narrow tradition 
 limited by their conditions, out of all real touch 
 with the knowledge and opportunities which are 
 accessible to others; also that, in order to use this 
 tradition to the full and hand it on to the succeeding 
 generation with the greatest increase, the largest 
 possible number of the community should be given 
 a share in it and trained to develop by its means 
 their own personal powers. 
 
 A wise social reform has, therefore, nothing to 
 fear from modern discoveries in biology so far as 
 the quality of men and women is concerned, and it 
 
 remains true that the Christ spirit that seeks the 
 P 209 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 good of each, especially those that need it most, 
 is the best social policy. 
 
 III. Tue Prostem or NumBeErs 
 
 1. Causes of fertility —It has been seen that in 
 fact the great increase in numbers does not come 
 from those families that live in better conditions, 
 but from those in the deepest poverty, in spite of 
 the high death-rate among them. The causes of 
 this need analysis. 
 
 (1) Biological—Herbert Spencer! and others, 
 basing their conclusions on the general truth that 
 the lower forms of life are the more prolific, thought 
 that among men the development of intellectual 
 and other powers was at the expense of that of 
 reproduction. ‘This view, though it can scarcely 
 be said to have been refuted, is not in favour to-day 
 with biologists and therefore cannot here be pressed. 
 More accurate research is needed before a verdict 
 can be given for either contention. But there is 
 one thing arising from biological principles which 
 can be taken as certain. Where destroying forces 
 are many and largely indiscriminate in their action, 
 as in the conditions of the very poor, the families 
 that are naturally the most prolific will have a better 
 chance of leaving survivors than those that are less 
 so, and this goes some way to explain the high 
 birth-rate of the “‘ slums.” 
 
 (2) Soctological—It is probable, however, that 
 the chief causes are sociological. Those who live 
 
 1 Principles of Biology. See also Geddes and Thomson, Evolution 
 of Sex. 
 
 210 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 in the poorest conditions have to deal with an 
 entirely different set of considerations, as regards 
 marriage and childbearing, from those which con- 
 front members of other classes. It is not surprising 
 that they are led to a different conclusion. 
 
 (a) Early marriages—The young professional or 
 business man is apt to defer marriage from prudential 
 reasons. As a matter of fact, the average age at 
 which he weds has in recent times tended to become 
 later than before. ‘The reasons are that his income 
 will not at first allow him, as a rule, to set up a home 
 of the same kind as that to which he has been 
 accustomed; that it increases with his increasing 
 experience and accumulation; and that it generally 
 goes on increasing despite any lessening of physical 
 strength. ‘The result of this is that the years of 
 probable childbearing on the part of the wife are 
 curtailed. On the other hand, the young labourer 
 in the early twenties gets as high a rate of wage 
 as he is likely to get and has greater strength than 
 he can command in later years. It is not advisable 
 for him to defer marriage; on the contrary, the 
 sooner his children can supplement the family wage 
 the better, and if they are all off his hands by the 
 time increasing age makes it more difficult for him 
 to maintain regular work, he will be fortunate. 
 Prudence and natural inclinations therefore work 
 together. 
 
 Even if the size of families were the same in all 
 classes, it is clear that the greater rapidity with 
 which the generations succeed their predecessors 
 among the very poor must result in a much greater 
 
 increase of population among them, other things 
 ZII 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 being equal. ‘The longer period of possible child- 
 
 bearing on the part of the wife, however, tends to 
 increase the actual number in the family. ‘This 
 intensifies the general result. 
 
 (b) Birth restriction—It is unquestionable that 
 much of the infertility of the more comfortable 
 classes is due to deliberate restriction in the number 
 of children and that this practice does not yet 
 prevail among the poorest, to any appreciable extent, 
 though it is known to be spreading among skilled 
 artisans. Whether this restriction is in itself right 
 or wrong, morally, or whether some of the methods 
 employed are consistent and others inconsistent with 
 Christian ethics, is highly important in other 
 respects, but does not fall to be considered in the 
 present connection. We are here concerned with 
 the facts and their explanation. The immediate 
 question is, why do those who have means restrict 
 their numbers to so great an extent, while those who 
 have least seem to make no effort in this direction ? 
 
 The reasons given in the case of early marriages 
 apply partly here also. ‘To a middle-class family, 
 where the cost of extra children in house-room, 
 education and nurture is so large as to be readily 
 appreciated, such considerations as the maintenance 
 or improvement of their status and the more efficient 
 nurture of a few appeal with striking force, out- 
 weighing those that arise on other than economic 
 grounds. But to a very poor family the prospect 
 of any improvement in status or indeed any immedi- 
 ate benefit through restriction is very slight. A 
 larger family does not mean a house with more 
 
 bedrooms but sleeping more closely together. ‘The 
 212 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 greater cost of education will only fall on them in 
 such indirect ways as not to be noticed. Probably 
 the most powerful factor in the case is that they 
 have no status to lose. 
 
 Again, the middle-class income is usually suffi- 
 ciently certain to be calculable, allowing plans to 
 be made with foresight. That of the very poor 
 is not. It appears to be largely a matter of luck; 
 where folk live “from hand to mouth ” the calcu- 
 lation as to the number of mouths seems to be 
 somewhat futile. 
 
 The force of tradition is even greater. The 
 physiological, economic and other discussions which 
 play so great a part among modern educated people 
 have practically no place in the life of the very poor, 
 who do not act in defiance of the arguments for 
 restriction or in agreement with those against, 
 but simply in ignorance of them. To them it is 
 the natural thing to beget children and to manage 
 as best they can from day to day, whatever the 
 number of the children may prove to be. Whether 
 it be true or false that the power of reproduction is 
 limited by the development of the intellectual and 
 other powers of life, it is certainly true that among 
 the very poor there are few other interests to com- 
 pete with what has always been acknowledged as 
 one of the fundamental natural instincts. It must 
 also be remembered that their tradition does not 
 include the knowledge, now being so assiduously 
 spread among the educated, of the means of bringing 
 about restriction of birth without denying the 
 sexual instinct, even if they desired to use them. 
 
 As with quality, so with numbers, we are led to 
 
 213 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 the conclusion that the dangers which are dreaded 
 from changes which the application of Christian 
 principles to the reform of social conditions might 
 bring about are precisely those which are threatened 
 by existing economic and social forces. So far from 
 present-day poverty being a “check ”’ to population it 
 is a stimulant, and so far from being a “‘ selection ” 
 of the healthiest and hardiest it favours the multi- 
 plication from the least desirable stocks. At the 
 same time it is the inveterate foe of effective nurture, 
 so that it fails on every count. 
 
 This seems to be in agreement with the position 
 taken by the best eugenists. Mr. Macdougall, 
 for instance, who argues very strongly for inherited 
 limitations on the possible development of children 
 by nurture, says, “‘ This conclusion is distasteful, 
 for it sets a limit to the power of education. It may 
 seem likely to discourage the enthusiasts of educa- 
 tion; but it should not do that. Even though the 
 effects of education are limited by Nature, it is of 
 the highest importance that we make the most and 
 the best of the human material which she supplies ” 
 (National Welfare and National Decay, p. 70). 
 It has already been said that Mr. Carr-Saunders, 
 while quite as strong on the point that physical 
 characteristics can only be altered by selection, 
 maintains that social “ tradition,” as it makes for 
 good or bad conditions, is of the greater importance. 
 He also says, “ In an oppressed society over-popu- 
 lation not infrequently arises; in a selfish and 
 luxurious society there may at times be under- 
 population.” 
 
 Prima facie, it would seem that all the known 
 
 214 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 factors of restriction of population, as well as some 
 that are still doubtful, work most effectively when 
 men already have some status which they may lose 
 and have a practical possibility of improving it. 
 In that case the wholesale raising of the standard 
 of life for the poor—which is a very different thing 
 from the potential escape of a few from the condi- 
 tions which must still govern the lot of the many 
 who are left—appears to be the best way of curing 
 over-population. We need, however, in fairness 
 to Jook a little deeper, lest we should draw too hasty 
 conclusions from an analysis of present conditions 
 only. Population has been at different times and 
 in different countries either stationary, increasing 
 or decreasing. ‘This would seem to show that there 
 are several factors to be taken into account, and also 
 that it is desirable to have a clear conception of what 
 “ over-population ”’ really is. 
 
 2. The theory of over-population.—The views of 
 Malthus have been considerably altered in statement 
 by his successors and are to-day generally related 
 to what economists call the Law of Increasing and 
 Diminishing Returns. In any given industry the 
 position may be such that an increase in the number 
 of available workers will produce not only a total 
 increase in the product but a larger amount per 
 worker. But if conditions remain the same, that 
 twofold increase could not be indefinitely continued. 
 First a point would be reached at which each 
 additional worker might maintain the average 
 product, but no more; then, if numbers still 
 increased, the average amount of product per 
 
 worker would begin to come down. What is true 
 215 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 of any industry in particular seems in this respect 
 to be applicable to industry as a whole, and, as Mr. 
 Carr-Saunders says, “there will be, taking into 
 account on the one hand the known arts of produc- 
 tion, and on the other hand the habits and so on of 
 any people at any one time in any given area, a 
 certain density of population which will be the most 
 desirable from the point of view of return per head 
 of population. There will, in fact, under any 
 circumstances, be an optimum number.” 
 
 So far there is general agreement. But on the 
 question whether this most desirable number is in 
 truth ordinarily realised there is much divergence 
 of opinion. Mr. Carr-Saunders himself seems to 
 think that not only the conception but the fact 
 must be taken as different from what Malthus 
 believed. ‘‘’T’o him the problem was one of the 
 relative increase of population and of food; with 
 us it is one of the density of population and of 
 the productiveness of industry. To Malthus the 
 position was much the same in all ages; in his view 
 population, except under unusual circumstances, 
 had in any country at any given time always increased 
 up to the limit of subsistence and was in process 
 of being checked, chiefly by vice and misery. In 
 the modern view increase in skill has brought to an 
 increasingly dense population a larger income per 
 head.” He brings historical evidence to show that 
 this has actually been the case and that where there 
 has been failure to secure the “optimum” one 
 way or the other, undue density of population goes 
 with what he calls “an oppressed society,” while 
 
 under-population is associated with luxurious living. 
 216 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. J. M. Keynes! and Mr. 
 Harold Wright? still consider that the problem 
 is centred in the ability to produce or to buy 
 sufficient food, and that the natural tendency of 
 population is always to increase up to the limit of 
 subsistence. ‘This has been cloaked at certain 
 periods by the sudden and great expansion of 
 resources, but unless this expansion is continuous, 
 population must always tend to catch up and bring 
 the density to a greater pitch than the “ optimum.” 
 
 Mr. Carr-Saunders’ statement leaves us with no 
 very clear notion of the relation between the forces 
 making for the restriction or expansion of numbers 
 required for the “optimum” and the economic 
 conditions which determine what it should be. 
 On the other hand, it does seem to show that the 
 standard of life which is adopted has a very great 
 effect upon the numbers of any community. 
 
 The difficulty in the way of the theory that 
 population must always tend to encroach upon the 
 means of living is that already noted: that in the 
 communities with which we are now concerned 
 poverty is not caused by lack of means to feed our 
 present numbers, but by failure to use their produc- 
 tive powers, so that everyone can exchange the result 
 of his labour for the particular things needed. The 
 world already produces ample food for its popu- 
 lation,? but human arrangements are too faulty 
 
 1 J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace. 
 
 2 Harold Wright, Population. | 
 
 3 See the Report of the International Institute of Agriculture, 
 Rome, for the year 1923-1924. Countries exporting wheat can 
 send out 570 millions of centals (100 lbs.). The highest estimate 
 
 217 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 to get it where it is needed. Much more might 
 be produced and a very much larger population 
 be supported in comfort if we had the social sense 
 to use our existing knowedge and resources to the 
 full. ‘The advance of science, used for social instead 
 of anti-social purposes, holds every promise of 
 increasing those resources. Side by side with this 
 we must put the other fact, that, at any rate in our 
 own community, poverty is not a check but a 
 stimulus to numbers. 
 
 No doubt it is sound enough in theory that 
 population will expand unless it is somehow checked, 
 and that if it does expand there must be a corre- 
 sponding expansion of the means of living. It is 
 not so clear, however, that an expansion of the means 
 of living necessarily lets loose an uncontrollable 
 expansion of population. ‘The historic increase fol- 
 lowing the Industrial Revolution and the opening 
 up of world resources is not so simple as to be 
 explained by one factor only. ‘This opening up of 
 resources certainly did both allow of and also require 
 for its successful prosecution an increase of popu- 
 lation. But the massing of the people in conditions 
 of poverty in large towns was also a potent factor 
 in local and undesirable increase. 
 
 We have therefore some known and some unknown 
 factors working in this complex problem. It is 
 possible to over-simplify by taking some and leaving 
 out the others, reaching a conclusion in either 
 direction according to our preoccupation with 
 
 of requirements by importing countries is about 430 millions. 
 Better economic adjustment and scientific farming could greatly 
 increase these quantities on both sides. 
 
 218 
 
THE POPULATION PROBLEM 
 
 fears or hopes. It does not seem scientifically 
 sound to say that as a result of all the factors we 
 know, there must always be a large part of the 
 population living on the margin of bare existence 
 and that it is only this poverty that keeps numbers 
 down. The greatest hope seems to lie in removing 
 those conditions of poverty and ill-nurture which 
 are certainly stumbling-blocks to well-being in other 
 directions and seem to be so definitely associated 
 with what increase in population is undesirable. 
 When we have done that and when we have used 
 our powers of social organisation to remove the 
 restrictions on our productive powers we shall see 
 what is left of this problem more clearly. 
 
 It may be that those are right who believe that 
 the natural working of biological and social causes 
 would relieve us of any necessity for deliberately 
 planned restriction. It may be that the forces 
 which, after all, have been in action all through 
 history would need supplementing. In that case 
 it would be necessary to determine what measures 
 were consonant with Christian ethics; a point 
 which does not seem to come under our present 
 reference. What does emerge with considerable 
 certainty from this discussion is that the supposed 
 checks—voluntary or involuntary, moral or immoral 
 —at work in the existing state of things are producing 
 decrease or increase in the wrong quarters. The 
 social conditions that shock the Christian sense of 
 justice are precisely those that are hindering the 
 desired adjustment of population to resources. 
 We are brought again to the teaching of Jesus, that 
 problems of the means of life only find their effective 
 
 219 
 
INDUSTRY AND PROPERTY 
 
 solution when we are chiefly concerned with the 
 quality of life; when the reign of God on earth, 
 with its interpretation of seeking the good of 
 others as if it were our own, is made our central 
 purpose. 
 
as 
 
 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. Cuapter I, 
 
 1. What, in the teaching of Jesus, is the purpose of Industry? 
 Does it include such matters as beauty and freedom? 
 
 2. What social relations are essential to the conception of God’s 
 reign on earth? 
 
 3. What elements in our present industrial order do you think 
 ought to be conserved, as belonging to God’s Will for human life? 
 What are the chief characteristics in it in conflict with this Will? 
 
 4. Did Jesus really mean that if men made God’s reign their 
 chief concern all their material needs would be met? 
 
 2. Cuaprter II. 
 
 1. What do you know about the people of your own town or 
 district, with respect to the conditions described in this chapter? 
 
 2. What can be said in favour of inequality of incomes? What 
 are the moral objections to present disparities ? 
 
 3. Why should there be special treatment of (2) women and 
 () young people in Industry? In what respect, if any, should 
 Agriculture be distinguished from other Industries? 
 
 4. What are the deeper causes of industrial strife? Is there 
 anything in the nature of things that prevents their removal? 
 What spiritual factors need to be brought into play, by all 
 
 concerned? 
 221 
 
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 
 3. Cuaprers III and IV. 
 
 1. Are you clear about the differences between Capital, Credit 
 and Currency and their relations to each other? Discuss these. 
 
 2. Where does the “ reward of savings” come from? What was 
 the principle behind the Church’s earlier condemnation of “ usury” ? 
 What is the justification for “‘ interest ” to-day? 
 
 3. ‘ There is all the difference in practice between the Govern- 
 ment taking over Industries and Banks, and those who have control 
 of Banks undertaking part of the duties and responsibilities of 
 Government.” Discuss this. 
 
 4. What is the moral test for (2) Competition, and (6) Combina- 
 tion or Co-operation ? 
 
 4. CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. Consider carefully the distinction drawn between the failure 
 of the individual and the failure of the system. What does loyalty 
 to the principles of God’s Kingdom require of individual Christians 
 in their activities in conjunction with other citizens? 
 
 2. “ The division of labour and exchange of goods rest upon the 
 assumption of social co-operation. Where this fails, the system 
 breaks down.” How is this related to the problem of unemploy- 
 ment? 
 
 3. “‘ Wages are fixed for entire occupations and not from personal 
 considerations.” What bearing has this upon the existence of large 
 numbers of the people ‘‘ below the poverty line”? 
 
 4. Are the large incomes really. connected causally with the 
 inadequate incomes? 
 
 5. Cuapters VI and VII. 
 
 1. In what respects does consumption, wrongly directed, (a) 
 prove injurious to life itself and (5) restrict the production of the 
 means of life? 
 
 222 
 
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 2. What means would you suggest for directing consumption into 
 healthier ways? 
 
 3. If the analysis of human motives as given be accepted, which 
 of them could be counted upon for the necessary sustaining power 
 in a more Christian social order? 
 
 4. What practical measures do you think would liberate more 
 fully the motives that at present are unduly repressed or perverted ? 
 
 6. Cuapter VIII. 
 
 1. “ The idea of private property, whether individual or 
 coporate, implies the existence of law.” ‘‘ The authority of the 
 community is limited by the principles of the moral order of life.” 
 In what respects do the present laws rest upon that moral order? 
 Are any considerable changes required in the law itself? 
 
 2. Does the analysis of the different kinds of property bear out 
 the statement that the distinctions “‘ have not only great practical 
 significance,” but “ are of high importance as regards the moral 
 questions involved”? How does the use of money blur these 
 distinctions? 
 
 3. “While personality is centred in individuals it is inseparably 
 associated with the development of social life.”” How does this 
 bear upon the ownership of property? 
 
 4. What rights seem to you to be justified as regards (a) inheri- 
 tance and (b) bequest? 
 
 7. Cuaprer IX. 
 
 1. Estimate the growth of public recognition of the spiritual 
 principles involved in industry. How far is this public recognition 
 reflected in the action of Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations ? 
 
 2. What good results have flowed from the development of 
 “collective bargaining”? Does the organisation (on both sides) 
 give promise of future co-operation instead of conflict? 
 
 3. What are the strong and weak points of the Co-operative 
 223 
 
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 Movement? How can it be helped to make a more effective 
 contribution to a really Christian society? 
 
 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of State action in 
 industry? How can Christians bring into such collective action 
 the spiritual power of the Kingdom of God? 
 
 8. Cuapters X and XI. 
 
 1. “‘’The immeasurable value of the individual personality to 
 God, and therefore to honest men . . . is the real meaning of the 
 conception of human equality, and this is the first and fundamental 
 Christian conception of human life.” Do you accept this? 
 
 2. What is your conception of “individual freedom”? Why 
 does this require a social organisation? Why does State action so 
 often imperil personal freedom ? 
 
 3. Discuss the specific recommendations in the light of these 
 principles. 
 
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