AN INDIAN TOLSTOY.

 A representative of the "Daily News" had a conversation on January with Mr. Kellermacher, well-known architect of Johannesburg, who is in very close touch with M. K. Ghandi, the leader of the British Indians, in the Transvaal against the pass law. 

Mr. Ghandi, who so unselfishly suffered violence and imprisonment in the passive resistance movement in behalf of the rights of British Indians, has also given up his little fortune of six or seven thousand pounds for social causes like that for which Tolstoy laboured. The hundred acre farm of Phoenix, near Durban, was some time ago handed over by him to tho trustees of the colony, and this son and grandson of Indian Prime Ministers, and eloquent and successful practitioner at the Indian bar is at present penniless. 

"He is," said Mr. Kellermacher, "an extremely modest man, as you know, a man of the highest courage, and he is the happiest man I have seen. He lives on a farm of eleven hundred acres near Johannesburg, which by coincidence belongs to me. Only about fifty acres are at present cultivated, the rest is virgin soil, and we have proved a good supply of water through three bore-holes. General Smuts has promised to visit us, and in the next Parliament the law in resistance to which 2500 people have fol lowed Mr, Ghandi to prison will be abolished." 

"And what is Mr. Ghandi doing on the farm?"

 "He teaches a school of fifteen Indians, and he is a shoemaker. He insists upon doing the hardest and the meanest work upon the land, and he does the work of 10 men, sitting up all night with some one sick, and beginning manual work as early in the morning as anyone. There is no one in the world, I imagine, who carries out so vigorously the principles of Tolstoy, and you must remember that the Hindoo temperament and belief do not tend so much in the direction of work as ours do.

 "Mr. Ghandi believes that politics and religion are not activities apart from life, but must be put into active effect in every phase and detail of life. He teaches not by words, but by deeds. Words can be misunderstood, but not deeds. Men who come in contact with Mr. Ghandi gain a new idea of the value of life and of human relationship. He is the one man who fought the cause of his countrymen in South Africa, He did it by throwing away all rights and privileges, and insisting upon sharing the hardest blows that were going. He is doing just the same in the work of the farm." 

"Tolstyism," ventured our representative, "must be far more difficult in Africa, where the colour prejudice is so strong," 

"Colour prejudice," said Mr. Kellermacher, "is all rot. There is only misunderstanding with the blacks when you are seeking to get everything out of them that you can. As soon as you take up the attitude that you must not exploit them the colour prejudice vanishes."

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW ), 14 February 1912

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133960536

THE UNDESIRABLE ASIATIC

 A NATAL PEN PICTURE

(BY W A. SQUIRE.)

Natal, the garden colony, since the latter sixties, has encouraged and aided the importation of some of the lowest specimens of humanity from the teeming bazaars of India. Outcasts in all senses of the word without a habitation, and with no country to call his own, he is now knocking with grimy barbarian fingers at the door of civilisation demanding equal rights with British South Africans.

 The master men in the garden blest,

 Loved the white man well but the black man best.

 The colony of Natal is nearly half populated by Indians of the lowest type, controlled by savage instincts and subject to the most infamous of criminal impulses. The statisticians have lost count of the number the colony holds, and cannot find means to-morrow to trace or identify those it has publicly examined to-day. Criminals are at large, and uncontrolled disease is being spread to a degree that has at length caused the authorities to hasten to the aid of the Chief Health Officer of the colony.

 The arrest of seven Indians in Pretoria and Mr. Ghandi and five of his wealthy followers in Johannesburg marks a break in the continuity of the policy of drift into which the Asiatic problem has been allowed to drift in the past. The Transvaal has been brought face to face with the fact that the lip loyalty of the Indian coolie is a dangerous matter to accept, and that, beneath the oily subservience and cringing exhibition of Baboo-English jingoism that impelled Mr. Ghandi to seek a bubble reputation by organising a useless corps of Indian stretcher-bearers for General Buller's army corps, lie the ill-expressed aspirations to equal rights with civilised British subjects. It is like linking the barbaric Dravidian priest who sat his midnight vigil in the heights of the Himalayas to the frock-coated legislator in his seat beneath the clock at Westminster. Oil and water do not mix, and no country has yet been successful that let a majority of individuals rule a maximum of brains.

 The Transvaal calls upon all Indians in their boundaries, some 12,000, to register their names, and for purposes of identification leave their fingerprints with the Indian Immigration office. The Chinese mine coolies do not come into question, the system of identification so far as they are concerned is completed before they leave China. To fully appreciate the position, it must be thoroughly understood that the system of census taking throughout South Africa has been a very incomplete and thoroughly ineffectual one. Indian coolies of the lowest criminal castes, or of no caste at all, after terminating their articles of indenture in the tea or sugar plantations or coal mines of Natal, have crossed the border at Charlestown, and settled in the Transvaal towns, without the slightest possibility of the authorities discovering  their whereabouts should they or their friends, for any reason, of crime, wish to conceal them. The Indian merchant has control of the whole of the native trade. The Kafir prefers the Banyian storekeeper, who is of his colour, and but little above himself as to habits, to the European, some of whom he has, unfortunately, learned to distrust. These Indians have accumulated large landed possessions, and much wealth, and have been admitted far too much liberty in Natal. The Transvaal does not wish to repeat evils that to-day convert Natal into a questionable white colony. The seeds of sedition sown by natives in the stores of the Indian must, so far as the Transvaal Government is concerned, fall on barren soil, and the Botha Government has faced the question none too soon. How far the colony can demand fellow British subjects to submit to conditions of colonisation that amount to class legislation is a matter, that will in all probability be faced by the Colonial Office and the British Cabinet. The arrest of the ringleader, Mr. Ghandi, has brought about the climax. In any event, however, it will be found that with such horror does the Transvaal view the encroachment of the Asiatic, and the overrunning of its cities, towns, and villages with the scum of India, that measures of the greatest importance will be adopted and carried into force in face of any Anglo-Indian opposition that may be organised. The Asiatic sore now festering on the face of Natal can never be healed, but the infection may be prevented from spreading across the Drakenberg along the high veldt of the Transvaal.

 Mr. Ghandi, a Parsee barrister-at-law, is the leader of the South African Indian progressive movement. His ideas of black and white equality, and the brotherhood and fellowship of all British subjects, are founded upon effete and decayed notions, promulgated by Max Muller, and long ago discarded by scientists. The Indian coolie, in South Africa, whose battle is being fought by Mr. Ghandi, is a descendant of the Drairdian, who, with a spoonful of brains, hid in terror from the cave bear and tiger in the rock slopes of the Himalayas, what time the earth was young, and Israel had not evolved a prophet. Mr. Ghandi wishes to take him from his fetid slime, enlarge his pigmy brain by Act of Legislature and place him proudly upon a pedestal in equal footing with "the heir of all the ages," a dual monument of his own cupidity and oily jingo flag-wagging. "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." Yes, better even the native we know and can regulate as a savage and hold dominion over as an inferior than a horde of barbarian, evil, disease-spreading Asiatics, who claim the protection of the British flag as a means for the pollution of other colonies, and defy authority in scorn of consequences from a misapplied idea of martyrdom to the cause of Empire. Mr. Ghandi, from his self-elected position of South African dictator of laws, has disregarded the mandate that the developed brains of Europeans must of necessity dominate over the barbaric and semi-civilised intelligence of the undesirable Asiatic.

Australian Star (Sydney, NSW ), 18 January 1908 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229926483

The Influence of Judaism upon the Intellectual Development of Mankind.

 (By Bernhard Pomeranz.)

(Translated for The Hebrew by P.B.)

Who is there that is not familiar with the wonderful story of the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert? The historic narrative describes how the “pillar of fire” lighted their journeyings by night and the “ pillar of cloud ” protected their wanderings by day. This is symbolical of the later history of God’s chosen people.

For nearly two thousand years, the history of our race has been one of perpetual wandering through a wilderness of exile. The “ pillar of fire ” has been the symbol of that ardent enthusiasm for the national or Jewish ideal, which has sustained and guided us through the long nights of oppression and fanatical persecution. But, with the dawn of a brighter day, when the sun of tolerance, liberty and equality rises over us, we observe the “ pillar of cloud,” symbolical of selfishness, materialism, and indifferentism which have cast their shadow over the higher aims and ideals which should animate us.

The anti-Semitic movement which, in recent times, has sprung up in many continental centres, may prove after all a blessing in disguise, and serve to fan into flame the smouldering embers of a holy patriotism and enthusiasm, causing us to rally once more round the standard of Judaism. Then may we cry unto our enemies and detractors, “You have desired our death, but the Lord has made it our blessing.”

The activity of our enemies teaches a useful lesson, teaches us our duty, what we should do and what we should leave undone; the faults we should renounce, the virtues we should cultivate.

The best source whence to gain counsel and advice is the history of our own people, for therein we find the reflection of the spirit, the tendency and the destiny of our race.

Historia Magistra Vitæ said the Romans : That which is experience to the individual is to a nation its history. History lays bare to us the life of a nation and teaches us to adapt to our future conduct the lessons of the past; as was said by Israel’s greatest prophet to the people : “ Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations.”

The study of our National History is not only useful, but it is also interesting in the highest degree. There are two powerful reasons which make Jewish history particularly attractive, and its study so fascinating. Firstly: The history of nearly every nation other than our own is the history of a single race or nation, of its origin and development, a record of its relations with its neighbours, its successes and its failures; its decay and final extinction or absorption into another race. But the history of our people on the other hand brings us into contact with all the nations of the world, and is therefore universal. We meet with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Persians; our ancestors lived in the Greek, Macedonian and Roman Empires ; we came into contact with all the national groups formed during the middle ages, and are citizens at this day in every country of the globe. We meet all on our way in the study of the history of our eternal race.

Secondly : Israel was the first nation to lay the foundation of a so-called Philosophy of History. It was the first to perceive, underlying the struggles of rival nationalities and in the complications of national policies, a universal principle; and, recognising in its existence, a distinct purpose, proclaimed its history to be, and to be intended as such, a sure guide for all the world. Again, it was Israel that first formulated the axiom that “nations prosper by virtue and perish by vice.” It is, therefore, the originator of the fundamental principles of the world’s moral code. Neither the ancient mythologies nor heathen histories teach anything like that. Hesiod and Homer are silent about it just as are Herodotus and Tacitus. In the Homeric songs it is written that the gods do interfere with the destinies of nations and direct them according to their fancies and the end of the Trojan war is described as the realisation of the will of Zeus. But all we can learn is that the gods favored some above others from pure fancy, without a moral motive, without any regard to right and justice, and frequently in opposition to justice and morality.

I shall now endeavour to show when and how Judaism has influenced the moral and intellectual development of mankind and impressed it with the stamp of its own spirit, the understanding of which will also be an indication of the proper conception of our duty and a guidance for our conduct in the present and future.

The spirit, the essence of Judaism, can briefly be characterised in the words of the prophet, “ Love truth, love peace !” Judaism appeals to the mind and to the heart of man. Its fundamental doctrine is the unity of God, as the highest principle of the world ; the existence of fixed laws in nature and the unity of all forces and of all spirits. Judaism demands peace, peace of the man within himself, peace with his fellow man, and in its last consequence, the peace of the world. The whole tendency of Judaism is contained in two words : Monotheism and Messianism. To realise and to carry to victory these ideas, is its destiny in accordance with the prophecy: “You will carry the light of civilisation before all mankind.”

Let us now observe by the light of history when and how Israel has borne this spirit into the world. For this purpose we may divide our history into three epochs :

1. The Mosaic era to the return from the Babylonian exile.

 2. The Talmudic-Neo-platonic period.

 3. The time of our dispersion.

During the first epoch of Jewish national life, the influence of Judaism upon the non-Jewish world was, as a matter of course, limited, During that time our nation was preparing itself for its high mission, its literature was in a state of development. It was during this period that the ideas relating to God and Man underwent a process of fermentation and purification in the mind and heart of our people. But even at that time, this great intellectual movement, initiated chiefly by the prophets, had considerable influence upon other nations living in the neighbourhood of Canaan. This monotheistic doctrine pierced the dense clouds of Asiatic heathenism in every direction, and the God inspired Seers of Israel not only directed their fiery denunciations at their own race, but also at the inhabitants of the surrounding countries.

Through the Babylonian exile, and later under the rule of the Persians, the Jews came into close contact with the Babylonians and the Persians. Conflicting influences now asserted themselves—civilization and enlightenment from Judaism, darkness and corruption from those nations of whom we read in the Talmud: “ The names of the Angels, as they appear in the book of Daniel, they have borrowed from the Babylonian mythology, and thus grafted a foreign branch upon their own tribe.”

Part II.

It was only during the second epoch of Jewish national life that the influence of Jewish ideas made itself felt upon the heathen world. This was effected by the Bible, by means of its Greek translation, the Septuagint.

The Holy Writ, this book of books (of which even Goethe, the “ great heathen,” said that to it he owed in a great measure his education), was to the heathen world, up to the end of the third century, a book sealed with “ seven seals.” It was by its translation into Greek, the language understood and spoken by the civilized peoples of that time, that its contents became accessible to all civilized nations and the common property of mankind. “ The Septuagint,” says a prominent writer, “was the first apostle whom Judaism sent out to convert the world.”

One can imagine the powerful and even startling impression this work must have exercised upon the people of those days. A new field of thought, conception and principle was opened at once to the heathen world. Especially were the philosophical and cultured Greeks and Alexandrians struck by this original work of human intellect, feeling partly attracted yet partly repulsed by it, until the school of the Neo-Platonics, with their great and noble thinker, Philo, as leader, made them acquainted with the spirit of the sacred writings and, by means of an allegorical explanation of its contents, brought into harmony the Jewish with the Greek philosophical conceptions.

Even at that period we find Judaism at work welding the ideas of the Orient with those of the Occident by influencing the Neo-Platonism in Egypt through the Jewish philosophical school at Alexandria, and also by impressing its character upon the “ Gnosis ” through the Essenes, the forerunners of the Kabbala, in Palestine.

In such manner the ground was prepared for the growth of a new doctrine, Christianity. By lifting the Bible out of the prescribed circle of the Hebrew scholars to whom alone its language was intelligible, and by the endeavours of the Jewish savants of Alexandria to accommodate the sacred writings to the philosophical mind of the Greek thinkers, the conviction gradually took hold of the heathen world’s representatives, that they had hitherto lived in utter darkness, and that a better and truer doctrine was now before them. They became conscious of the littleness of their mythology, and the depravity of their morals, but they were deficient in moral strength to elevate themselves to the ideal height of the Jewish doctrine. Then arose men who undertook the work of mediators, who, in order to introduce part of the Jewish doctrine into heathenism, made concessions to the latter, diluting Judaism to make it tasteful to the heathens, and thus originated a religion which, thanks to the duplicity of its character, was able to propagate and make its way in the world, but which, still in consequence of its duplicity, became necessarily the enemy of its parent, Judaism. But not only indirectly by Christianity did Judaism give a great impulse to the intellectual life of mankind, but for a lengthened period it had a direct influence upon the mind and heart of the deeply agitated heathen world.

For it is an erroneous impression, that Judaism intended to remain a national religion only without showing any inclination to proselytism. This opinion is founded upon the fact, that, with the sole exception of the converting of the Idumaces by force, Judaism has never made proselytes by fire or sword. That the aspiration to become a universal religion, as announced by the prophets, did exist and that about two hundred years before and after the Christian era the doors of Judaism were open and thousands of heathens became converts—of this there is no doubt whatever. It is proved by the many stories of conversion, which Talmudic tradition has preserved ; also by the writings of contemporary Greek and roman authorities, who censure the apostasy of their countrymen and appear angry at the influence and adoption by them of Jewish spirit. For many of these proselytes, particularly for the “ metuentes,” who only observed certain Jewish morals and customs, without having accepted the totem of the union, Judaism was in most instances only a state of transition from heathenism to Christianity. Yet many became Jews pure and simple and remained true Jews for ever. It was only in later times, when experience showed the instability of conversion, politically as well as from a religious point of view, that Judaism ceased its efforts at proselytising and expressed just anger at the disappointments experienced, in the words : “Proselytes are the most dangerous disease on the body Judaic.”

This seclusion from the outside world was in reality the result of obedience to the law of self preservation as, after the loss of their political independence the Jews were scattered over countries, where the new creed gradually took firm root, and with increasing strength and power, lessened its tolerance. The new creed did not feel secure in the possession of its inheritance, as long as there existed a people who denied its right of ownership. It was therefore a vital matter either to christianise the Jews or to eradicate them absolutely and entirely. That was the cause of the first missionary mania, of the period of hatred and destruction that evolved canonical laws against the Jews, and the bloody persecutions and fanatical disputations.

But this struggle, which on the part of Judaism was purely defensive and carried on with intellectual weapons only, assisted considerably in the strengthening of the Jewish ideas and their propagation amongst mankind. Already the disputations from which the Church expected great advantages, had an opposite effect and caused doubts in many a Christian’s heart. This gave birth to a new branch of literature, called Apologetics, intended originally only to serve as a means of defence against the attacks of religious opponents. From this branch, even non-Jewish opponents of the Church took their sharpest weapons of attack. From the publication of the contra-gospels, written by Jews in the second century, and causing much trouble to the fathers of the Church, up to the time of Frederic the Great, Voltaire and other freethinkers ; all the opponents of the established Church found material for their effective and disintegrating polemics in the writings of the Jewish philosophers.

This circumstance explains the fury of the Church against Jewish literature and its endeavours to destroy by fire the Talmud and other literary products of Jewish intellect. But these endeavours of the Church missed their aim.

Here again we see Judaism exercising a lasting influence upon the modern world. The strife, provoked by the Church against the value of the writings of the Jews of that period, caused Reuchlin and other men well versed in Hebrew, to defend Jewish literature. A great literary battle was fought for and against it. The most prominent men of that age and the representatives of the universities entered the arena, and the strife ended with an unquestionable victory for Jewish literature and saw the appearance of a man, who was destined, with Bible in hand, to make a breach in the rotten walls of the Church—the appearance of Martin Luther.

Part III.

The Reformation, which founded the Protestant Church, was, as regards Judaism, a great step towards the truth and a return to the ancient faith. The more any sect frees itself from superstition and dogma, the nearer it approaches the original source of religion, the doctrine of Judaism. One of the consequences of the reformation was the deeper study of the Hebrew language by Christian learned men, and a deeper insight into our literature by the help of the works of Jewish linguists and commentators, such as Raschi, Ebsn Esra and Kimchi, who materially assisted in the understanding of our sacred writings and the fructification of contemporary Christian writers with the Jewish spirit.

A revolution, similar to that effected in the Occident by Judaism giving an impulse to Christianity, was accomplished, seven hundred years later, in the Orient by the foundation of the Mahomedan religion.

It is well known that Mahomed communicated to a great extent with Jewish learned men, and was made acquainted by them with the Bible and the hagadic part of the Talmud. It was this acquaintance with the Jewish sacred writings, that induced him to free his fellow natives from heathenism and convert them to Monotheism. Mahomed, says Renan, was at a certain time of his life a Jew, and it can be maintained he remained a Jew all his life long. The Koran is imbued by a Jewish spirit. Mahomed has made the Jewish ideas with all their traditions and rites conform to the intellect and feeling of the Arabs, he “ Arabified " Judaism. In company with these “ Jewdified ” Arabs, with the Moors of the Pyrenaic peninsula, the Jews worked hard during the middle ages to preserve science to the world. This is one of the greatest services Judaism has done to mankind. Whereas over the whole of Europe there was entire darkness ; as with the call: “ God wills it ” crusades were undertaken and tens of thousands of families put to death, while wonders and relics are almost the only theme under discussion over the whole of the Occident; while Christianity was submerged in a bottomless abyss of superstition without the slightest inclination for the investigation of truth and science : during all that time the Jews remained on the path of science and worked to increase human knowledge. There existed during those times a legion of deep Jewish thinkers, prominent physicians, natural philosophers, and last, but by no means least, translators of the Greek and Arabic literature for the benefit of Europeans.

By translating the works of the Greek philosophers and naturalists into Arabic, and the philosophical and medical works of Arabic thinkers and savants into Latin, they provided the Occident with a knowledge of classical antiquity, and by doing so and also by making Europe acquainted with the philosophy and natural science of the Moors, they greatly assisted in the revival of science in Europe and became thus the standard bearers of Humanism in the fifteenth century.

And from another quarter the enlightening influence of the Jewish-Spanish school made itself felt, by giving birth to one of the greatest thinkers Judaism ever has produced, Spinoza. Spinoza, prompted by the writings of Ebn Esra, lays, through his Biblical and political treatises, the foundation of a rational investigation of the Bible and thus becomes the apostle of freedom of conscience. Urged thereto by the works of Maimonides and a study of the Kabala, he introduces with his “ Ethica more geometrico demonstrata” a mathematical method of investigating the science of metaphysics, and becomes the principal founder of modern philosophy.

During the 18th century the tendency of religious thought be came more liberal, more tolerant. This tolerance emanated from puritanical, Bible-loving England. It made itself appreciated throughout France and Germany where Lessing and Herder were the champions of the newly awakened freedom of thought. These liberal ideas were closely allied to the spirit of Judaism and were more in sympathy with the teachings of the Old Testament rather than the New.

Renan, not without reason and justice, calls the prophets the first true socialists. These prophets, who detested injustice, who had fiery words of condemnation for every kind of oppression, exploitation and slavery, who with all the enthusiasm of their great souls preached absolute equality in the eyes of the law and the possible perfect equality of ownership; these prophets who, as a means to counteract undue accumulation of property, had instituted the year of release :—these prophets gave to the world the socialistic idea three thousand years ago. It was the office of their successors, such men as Lassalle and Marx, to make the spark a blazing flame.

Thus we see Judaism during the whole course of its history in the workshop of humanity, industrious, courageous and untiring, working for the realisation of its ideals : truth and peace ; unity as a principle of the world, and unity as a principle for life.

And not without success.

Unity as a principle of the world is accepted to-day and taught by modern science ; in unity as a principle of life in the progress of humanity the better part of mankind already believes.

If these ideals are not yet fully realized it is not the fault of Judaism, but the cause is heathen sensuality, in the chains of which the larger part of mankind is still fastened, for, as the poet says:

Dass in der Wiege

Die Menschheit noch liege

Beweisen zur Genüge :

Mönch, Sclave und Kriege.

Therefore our mission is not yet finished. Therefore it will be our duty to fight with all our power against the spirit of darkness and injustice, against narrowminded dogmatism and bigotry, the greatest enemies of enlightenment, progress and Judaism.

Australasian Hebrew (Sydney, NSW ),  November 1896 

u/nla.news-article261028086

NATIONAL GUILDS.

 (By Professor Murdoch.) 

The present time may perhaps be known to future historians as the Age of Bewilderment. It is a time of swift and stupefying disintegrations of belief; a time when the authoritative voices have lost their old dogmatic tone, and the prophets are put to shame, and the experts visibly confounded; a time when the old faiths have crumbled, and the old formulae have failed us, and the old certitudes—the cherished doctrines, the rooted convictions—are torn up and blown hither and thither like dead leaves by the mighty hurricane which has come raging and roaring through the world. Nowhere is this so manifest as in the field of industrial relations. None but the obvious charlatan any longer dares to speak with assurance of what the industrial future may hold in store for us. We know that it will be different from the present; beyond that barren knowledge, all is groping and conjecture. Nevertheless, if we look steadily at the chaos and confusion around us, we do presently begin to discern, or to think, we discern, hints of a certain definite drift of opinion; we do begin to see which way the wind is blowing. In the industrial world I submit that the wind is blowing, though gustily enough, m the direction of national guilds.

 At the risk of seeming to utter the stalest of truisms, one must remark that during the last hundred years we have been presented with four main attempts to solve the industrial problem—the problem, that is, of the relations of Capital and Labour to one another and of the State to both. Individualism was followed by Socialism, Socialism by Syndicalism; and now Syndicalism is being rapidly superseded in its turn by the idea of National Guilds, an idea to which some of its apostles have given the rather misleading name of Guild Socialism.

 Dickens has stated in one immortal phrase the comfortable gospel of Individualism: "Every man for himself and God for us all, as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens." The theory of Individualism was, briefly, that the private employer was to settle his own relations with the employed, while the State stood aside and minded its own business. The practical applications of this alluringly simple creed gave England the spectacle of, in Mr. Sidney Webb's words, "women working half-naked in the coal mines; young children dragging trucks all day in the foul atmosphere of the underground galleries; infants bound to the loom for fifteen hours in the heated air of the cotton mill, and kept awake only by the over-looker's lash; hours of labor for all, young and old, limited only by the utmost capabilities of physical endurance." England, the England that had lately emerged from an heroic struggle for the liberties of Europe turned herself into an industrial hell, so appalling that, though some may still sigh in secret for the good old days before the State began to pry and fuss and meddle in industry, no one openly advocates a return to such conditions. As an avowed creed, Individualism is dead and done with, one of the evil memories of mankind.

 It was succeeded, inevitably, by Socialism; I mean, of course, neither the socialism of the red flag and the barricades and the swift and sudden and relentless seizure of land from  the landlord and of capital from the capitalist, nor the mild, hum-drum, respectable, unadventurous Fabian socialism which aims at the gradual training and equipment of a vast army of State officials; I mean something wider, some thing which includes these and innumerable other creeds, all of which have this belief in common, that salvation cometh by the State, that the industrial problem is to be solved by the action of the State. This is a belief, which no longer animates any large body of thinking persons.

 In France and America Socialism was succeeded by Syndicalism, a doctrine which sprang out of the worker's discovery that the politician was a broken reed and that the bureaucrat could be as much a tyrant as the worst private employer. The discredit into which, all the world over, politicians and parliaments have of late years fallen—whether justly or unjustly I do not pretend to know—made inevitable the coming of some such philosophy as that of Syndicalism.. The syndicalist was essentially anti-socialist; he was 'more hostile to the State than even the old individualist had been. He pinned  his faith to industrial combinations, arrayed for battle against capitalism; and his method was violence. His choice of methods was a fatal mistake, because if the appeal is to violence the worker must always, in the long run, be beaten; but his worst blunder was his attitude towards the State. By taking up that attitude, he not merely threw away an indispensables weapon, but quixotically put that weapon into the hands of the enemy. The failure of the great Australian strike of last year—essentially a  syndicalist adventure—showed many thoughtful men among the strikers where the fallacy of syndicalism lay.

 On the heels of Syndicalism came the doctrine of National Guilds, a doctrine which has made great strides since the war began, and which, as even the London "Times" admitted the other day, "is stirring great numbers of the younger workers, and is receiving quite inadequate notice in the general Press." It has certainly received quite inadequate notice in Australia; we are destined, if I am not mistaken, to hear much of it in the near future. The best exposition of it, so far, is to be found in a book entitled "National Guilds," by Mr. A. R. Orage, the editor of the "New Age," a journal which has been preaching this gospel, week in, week out, these many years. Another book which the inquiring spirit may be strongly advised to read is the remarkable volume, "Authority, Liberty, and Function," by Ramiro de Maeztu, a Spaniard, who writes excellent English, and who seeks to give  the doctrine a philosophical basis.

 A recent article in the "Round Table" points out that the adoption of the Whitley Report by the British Government is a momentous event in the ordering of British life:  "It lays firm the foundations of the new industrial order which the country expects to see after the war—and upon a basis of absolute equality between the two chief partners in the industrial process, management and labour." Now it is true the Whitley Councils are not National Guilds but they are unquestionably a step in that direction; their establishment is one among the innumerable straws which show which way the wind, in Britain at all events, is blowing. The doctrine of National Guilds appears to combine what is best in the ideals of the trade unionist with what is best and most practicable, in the ideals of the socialist; it avoids the fatal error of Syndicalism, in that it clearly recognises the necessary functions of the State: but the name sometimes given to it, "Guild Socialism," is, as I have said, rather misleading, for the National Guildsman has no belief whatever in the State enterprises which we commonly call socialistic. He pins his faith to the idea of a combination of all the men and women—labourers, administrators, hand-workers, brain-workers, skilled and unskilled—connected with a particular industry into a guild which shall manage that industry as a national undertaking. He does not seek to supplement wages by the method known as "profit-sharing:" he seeks rather to abolish the wages system and to substitute therefore a genuine partnership. In the work of the guild the State participates, regulating and controlling on behalf of the community. Syndicalism aims at the creation of guilds so powerful as to be able at their own sweet will to hold up the community; a madness into which the National Guildsman does not fall, being saved by his altogether saner and sounder view of the true relation of the State and industry. I am not going to attempt however, an exposition of this new gospel. Frankly, I am qualified neither to champion nor to condemn, nor even to expound, this or any other industrial creed. But I suppose that even a rank outsider, who confesses with shame that he has never read through a text-book of economics, may be allowed to recognise that the industrial condition into which we have fallen is intolerable in the present and full of darkest menace for the future. Even an outsider may be allowed to feel convinced that the problem will never be solved except by the substitution of some form of partnership for the present relations of employer and employed; and that, unless a sufficient number of people can be brought to recognise this in time, the present war of the nations will be followed by an industrial war within each nation, more horrible still. And my sole purpose in writing these lines is to draw some attention to a proposal which has not yet, in Australia, attracted the notice it deserves; a proposal which may be right or wrong, but which is at any rate an honest attempt to grapple with the facts which lie at the root of industrial discontent. Some in our midst are already thinking along these lines, as a recent correspondence in the columns of the "West Australian" shows. No one, I imagine, believes that the Guild idea can be suddenly realised, in England, or anywhere else; the change must come bit by bit, as all great and salutary changes do; and the essential preliminary is that as many minds as possible should be set brooding over the matter.

West Australian (Perth, WA),  1918  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27473534

Is patriotism a decaying virtue ?

 Or, not to beg the preliminary question, is it a virtue at all ? Mr. GOSCHEN has been lecturing the rising generation of England upon the necessity of maintaining a lofty national spirit, but has scarcely touched either of these questions in its simple form. To define patriotism as love for, and pride in, one's country is easy. To arrive at a solid ethical basis for it is quite another matter. It is a commonplace to assert that self-sacrifice for the sake of fatherland is the citizen's duty. But why is it a duty, and when does it cease to be a duty ? These are questions which the orator and the poet ignore, but which dry-light philosophers and coarsely unpoetic natures begin to agree in examining. From HOMER, TYRTÆUS, and HORACE down to SCOTT or TENNYSON, the whole race of bards sings in unison that it is dulce et decorum to die for one's country, and that the man " whose heart hath ne'er within him burned " for his native Greece, Italy, England, or Caledonia, however " stern and wild " or otherwise those lands may be, is doomed to be, and deserves to be, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. And with the poets go all those of mankind who are apt to yield to mere generous impulses and unanalysed affections. " Our country, right or wrong," appears to them a maxim as unquestionable as the fifth commandment. With them, too, agreed the older order of idealistic philosophers. PLATO went so far as to maintain that the fatherland and its laws were things deserving of more honour and reverence than even parents themselves. But the world, which "advances" on so many lines, intellectual and moral, has been obliged to advance on this line also. The modern student of ethics shakes his sapient head at patriotism as a virtue Mr. SIDGWICK remarks that "whether a citizen is at any time morally bound to more than certain legally or constitutionally determined duties does not now seem to be clear ;" and therein he but follows cautiously KANT'S dictum that a country has no inherent natural right to the obedience of its citizens. To moralists of this type patriotism is an objectionable disturbing element—an impediment to the play of pure reason, and the faculty of seeing things as they are. OVID once committed himself to speaking of "the love of fatherland, stronger than reason," and that anything should be stronger than reason is naturally a heinous condition of things to the philosophic mind. Nor would we quarrel with the philosopher thereat. We would only ask him to be careful that, in constructing his syllogisms, he has taken all the necessary factors into account.

Though all ages, even the most barbarous, and all countries, even the least eminent, have believed in the citizen loving, belauding, and dying for his native land, there have, no doubt, always been self-centred individuals and constitutional cynics who have asked themselves, when they dared not ask their neighbours, why a citizen should recognise any obligation to anything beyond his own precious self. Side by side with ÆSCHYLUS or PLATO or HORACE went those who held that " any land where you are prosperous is your fatherland." Such persons would never have won a battle of Marathon, or brought their country through to the brilliant issue of Zama. Fortunately they were few in number, and had little to say in the destinies of the country for which their affection was such cupboard-love. But in those times their number increases daily. There are many circumstances which tend to replace the fine old patriotism by a watery "cosmopolitanism" which might, perhaps, better be called sheer blank indifference. Among the ancients the zeal for home, with its Lares and Penates, and for the State, with its religious and other institutions, was inevitable. Foreigners were barbarians, cut off by other languages, other gods and rites, other customs. The natural attitude of state to state was one of hostility. To go abroad meant to sacrifice much comfort, all ambition, and most of the privileges of a free man. It was banishment, felt as keenly as by NORFOLK in " Richard II." In later times, however much new religious ideas had brought mankind into closer brotherhood and rendered national customs more homogeneous, yet travelling was uncommon and difficult, the disabilities of aliens were great, and perpetual wars kept alive everywhere the sentiment of distinct nationality. In modern times the facilities of travel and relations of trade have made nations better acquainted with others' virtues and their own deficiencies. Ease of emigration and the success of emigrants have made the breaking of the tie with the home land more and more commonplace. That any races were born to be permanently hostile to each other is a doctrine now held only by French and Germans relatively to each other. Increased intercourse has produced a closer similarity of constitutions, dress, and customs. The linguistic difficulty has been largely surmounted. Religious intolerances and antipathies retain no great potency among the more civilised of peoples. Moreover, the vogue of philosophic scepticism is dissolving all sorts of primitive ideas. The so-called education of the present day, confident in its miserably jejune logic, is apt to look upon one's country as just so much earth, and on the state as so much machinery, neither one nor the other being capable of inspiring a tender sentiment. Democracy, uninformed by any great idea, and looking upon the state as but a temporary majority of persons, will recognise no obligation of self-sacrifice for anything so commonplace as " the country." Yet again, the growth of industrial unions extending from country to country induces many workers to place the interests of their trade first and of their fatherland but a poor second. Socialists openly proclaim the same doctrine. The result of all these circumstances is that patriotism as a sentiment shows clear signs of decay ; and that cosmopolitanism, whether regarded as a transcendental conception of a wider human federation, or as a mere negation of patriotic sentiment, is gaining ground. Men are beginning to treat the fact of their being born and nurtured in a certain country as only a geographical and historical accident not entailing any moral obligation. Mr. GOSCHEN acutely notes two spirits which seriously affect patriotism in practice. The one is the spirit of parochialism, which will sacrifice the gravest national interests for the sake of getting a town pump, and will bear a national humiliation if only it can secure the new post-office. If Mr. GOSCHEN lived among ourselves, he would witness the spectacle of a community which has been brought to realise all too keenly how far parochial districts will go in bringing disaster on the country for the sake of their own little railway or other local fancy. The other spirit is that of party, which will sometimes lead one faction to welcome disaster to the whole nation provided the disaster brings discredit and defeat to the other side. It remains to be seen whether party spirit will be overcome by patriotism among ourselves when a Government proposes manfully to act for the public weal against all the clamours of parochialists.

We do not believe in Jingoism, if Jingoism means to be Chauvinists. Bragging of one's country in season and out of season is not patriotism. It is intrinsically no better than bragging of one's village, a proceeding of which any other village can see the folly and feel the offence. None the less, natural regard for one's village, then for one's province, and thence for one's country, is a thing to be commended and not analysed. It may be partly due to unreasoning affection for old associations, partly to love of the friends whose circle is in the locality, partly to that self-esteem which will not admit inferiority of the place from which one comes. In the case of a great country it may be pride in its power and history. It may even be a sense of solid obligation for the advantages derived from its superior institutions, in which we have shared. It may be, and in the case of Englishmen it is, all these things. To dissect our patriotism and call it ethically baseless may be sport for philosophisers, but it is death to milder men. " Impressions are often juster than judgments," and we declare for the natural sentiment. If the result of patriotism is to maintain the power and high character of the fatherland, to keep it superior or at least not inferior, to others, and to improve the individual's own morale by the habit of making sacrifices in its behalf, we do not care for all the syllogistic counter-demonstrations of all the logicians and moralists. In these days, when wars are scarce and patriotic deaths but little called for, the true patriot is he who deliberately encourages his affection for his country as a whole, who looks broadly and enthusiastically at its interests, and who disregards the cries of party or of parish when the country itself cries otherwise.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic.),  1893, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8532444

SEMI-SOCIALISTS.

 " There is, generally speaking, amongst democrats a leaning towards a kind of limited State Socialism, and it is through that that they hope to bring about a peaceful revolution, which, if it does not introduce a condition of equality, will at least make the workers better off and contented with their lot.

" They hope to get a body of representatives elected to Parliament, and by them to get measure after measure passed which will tend to this goal ; nor would some of them, perhaps most of them, be discontented, by this means we could glide into complete State Socialism.

 " I think that the present democrats are widely tinged with this idea, and to me it is a matter of hope that it is so ; whatever of error there is in it, because it means advance beyond the complete barrenness of the mere political programme. Yet I must point out to these semi-Socialist democrats that in the first place they will be made the catspaw of some of the wilier of the Whigs. There are several of these measures which look to some socialistic, as, for instance, the allotment scheme, and other schemes tending towards peasant proprietorship, co-operation, and the like, but which, after all, in spite of their benevolent appearance, are really weapons in the hands of reactionaries, having for their real object the creation of a new middle class made out of the working class and at their expense ; the raising, in short, of a new army against the attack of the disinherited.

" There is no end to this kind of dodge, nor will be, apparently, till there is an end of the class which tries it on, and a great many of the democrats will be amused and absorbed by it from time to time. They call this sort of nonsense "practical," but it seems like doing something, while the steady propaganda of a principle which must prevail in the end is, according to them, doing nothing, and is unpractical. For the rest, it is not likely to become dangerous, further than as it clogs the wheels of the real movement somewhat, because it is sometimes a mere piece of reaction, as when, for instance, it takes the form of peasant proprietorship, flying right in the face of commercial development of the day, which tends ever more and more towards the aggregation of capital, thereby smoothing the way for the organised possession of the means of production by the workers when the true revolution shall come ; while, on the other hand, when this attempt to manufacture a new middle class takes the form of co-operation and the like, it is not dangerous because it means nothing more than a slightly altered form of joint stocking, and everybody almost is beginning to see this. . . The enormous commercial success of the great co-operative societies, and the absolute no-effect of that success on the social condition of the workers, are sufficient tokens of what this non-political co-operation must come to ' Nothing — it shall not be less.' 

" But again, it may be said, some of the democrats go further than this ; they take up actual pieces of Socialism and are more than inclined to support them.

 " Nationalisation of the land or railways, or cumulative taxation on income, or limiting the right of inheritance, or new factory laws, or the restriction by law of the day's labor— one of these, or more than one sometimes, the democrats will support, and see absolute salvation in these one or two planks of the platform. All this, I admit, and once again I say, there is a snare in it— a snake lies lurking in the grass.

" Those who think they can deal with our present system in this piecemeal way very much underrate the strength of the tremendous organisation under which we live, and which appoints each of us to his place, and if we do not chance to fit it, grinds us down till we do.

 " Nothing but a tremendous force can deal with this force ; it will no suffer itself to be dismembered, nor to lose anything which is really its essence without putting forth all its force in resistance ; rather than lose anything which it considers of importance, it will pull the roof of the world down.

 " For, indeed, I grant these semi-Socialist democrats that there is one hope for their tampering piecemeal with our society, if by chance they can excite people into seriously, however blindly, claiming one or other of these things in question, and could be successful in Parliament in driving it through, they would certainly draw on a great civil war, and such a war once let loose would not end but either with the full triumph of Socialism or its extinction for the present, it would be impossible to limit the aim of the struggle ; nor can we even guess at the course which it would take, except that it would not be a matter of compromise. But suppose the Democratic party were peaceably successful on this new basis of semi-State Socialism, what would it mean ?

 Attempts to balance the two classes whose interests are opposed to each other, a mere ignoring of the antagonisms which has led us through so many centuries to where we are now, and then, after a period of disappointment and disaster, the naked conflict once more ; a revolution made, and another immediately necessary on the morrow — William Morris, "Signs of Change." 

People (Sydney, NSW ),11 November 1905, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138914451

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

———————— 

In this broad earth of ours,

 Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, 

Enclosed, and safe within its central heart.

 Nestles the seed perfection.

 The pursuit of perfect human happiness has been the aim of the social reformer, for longer time perhaps than chemists sought the philosopher's stone or mechanists the principal of perpetual motion. That this earth may be made to the likeness of a heaven, peopled only by happy men and women, many optimists of all ages have dreamt. In the imaginative account of Plato's Republic, in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, in a book of a like character left unfinished by Lord Bacon, in the modern dreams of Bellamey's " Looking Backward," and William Morris' " News from Nowhere," may be traced the same exuberant hope that unhappiness is no necessary part of earthly life, and may with wise effort be banished. The idea of a heaven on earth has been, it is true, sometimes combated for religious reasons, by teachers who argued that being a place of trial this planet could not but be a place of unhappiness. Such contentions have however, come rather from a misconstruction of the meaning of the word happiness (which is by no means inconsistent with hard trial) than from any serious thought of setting up a fatalistic creed that since misery must exist, being ordained by the nature of things, no effort should be made to secure earthly comfort. This is proved by the fact that in all ages religious associations and bodies have striven, sometimes mistakenly but always sincerely, to add to the sum of human happiness. The great Crusades of the churches against slavery, their innumerable charity organisations, their bold denunciations of the grinding greed of any oppressors of the poor— all witness how largely the promotion of the material welfare of the masses has occupied their attention.

 Contrasting the earlier meetings of pagan and Christian Utopians with those of later ages a basic difference will be found. The former are aristocratic, the latter democratic. Plato's scheme of the completely happy life was founded on the idea that only the free Greek population of the world was human, that the Barbarian (a term comprehensive of all the people's living outside of the Ionic peninsula) was a strange creature not possible of inclusion in any system of a well-ordered state, and that the slave was a superiorly-gifted animal to be fed and housed well, but otherwise unconsidered. His Utopia was for a few philosophers, living a life of high thinking, under the favoring influences of a material well being which wisdom would prevent from abuse. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman, set down laws of life which followed the most exalted moral principles, but yet presupposed the existence of a slave class. Sir Thomas More's Utopia represented, according to modern ideas, a very great advance on the old pagan ideas. His conception of a happy state involved the complete material happiness of all individuals, but their obedience to and reverence of Prince and Church.

 Omitting consideration of minor writers from the Elizabethian period to the 19th century there seems to have been little of that curious speculative striving after the perfect happiness which is now the refuge of every mediocre scribbler. With the genesis of the socialistic movement, imaginary Utopias became as plentiful as forms of religion. "Looking Backward" was one of the most striking of the easy recipes for human happiness, partly on account of its fair literary ability and boldness of thought ; partly because of the splendid audacity which placed Utopia hardly a century ahead of the present generation. It was preceded and followed by hundreds, perhaps if all the booklets of the world could be accounted thousands, of schemes of the same kind, modelled upon State socialism, and guaranteed to cure all the evils that flesh is heir to. A closing word was spoken by William Morris, who, without attempting to say how his ideal could be attained, wrote of England under a system of anarchist-communism, peaceful, happy, reverent, filled to the lips with art and poetry living a life woven with purple and gold. From a " reform " point of view his book was perhaps not meant seriously. As a beautiful daydream it will live in literature.

 The reason for drawing the dividing line at the Elizabethan period, in considering the written aspirations after Utopia is that the works antecedent to that all dealt with an aristocratic form of rule. Republican or monarchical, each writer presumed the existence of a superior class and an inferior class. Since then the world has gone through the French Revolution and has learnt its democracy. Modern Utopias, therefore, are based upon the rule of the people or on no rule at all, as in the works of Prince Krapotkin and Morris. 

After calm consideration it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that both ancient and modern schemes for Utopian happiness are at present impracticable. That under an aristocratic system it is possible to secure perfect material happiness for every citizen of a state has been proved by experience in many parts of the world. England, in the days of " Merrie Englande," ruled by an aristocracy held in check by a powerful church, and with one third of its lands held by religious organisations, came very close to that happy state. Thorrold Rogers, in his researches as to the economic condition of Britain at that period, found though many abuses, hardships and wrong privileges existed, the general state of the people was happy. A workingman could with the labor of one and a half days earn sufficient for good board and lodging for a week. With three days labor he met the cost of the maintenance of himself, a wife and family. Beggars, except the maimed, were rare, as the monasteries kept the poor. The then Established Church had acquired possession of nearly one-third of the whole cultivated area of the country, but was a mild and indulgent landlord and used its revenues in the building of great churches and other works of art. In Peru also, under a pagan religion, material happiness was secured to all the inhabitants of a country boasting a very large population and a great degree of civilisation. The conditions of " Merrie Englande" and of Peru are now, however, impossible. King Demos has upset all the thrones and made impossible a State founded on the principle of the absolute obedience of the general people to an aristocratic order. 

Equally impossible are the democratic socialistic schemes for Utopia, of which the present days have been so prolific. All such schemes are founded on the assumption of a new man, a man without envy, selfishness, turbulence or sloth ; and that new man has not yet come within the range of things practical. In fact whilst hoping for the attainment of such schemes, those dreaming them do seem to strive most for the stirring up of the malices and jealousies which hinder humanity from happiness.

 But away from all the thinkers of vain things, a few have found what seems the right road to happiness. Such men as Ruskin, Carlyle, Mazzini, Walt Whitman. (those are not mentioned invidiously as there are many score others) have insisted that the gainings of happiness is not through materialism, have gone to older days and have recast for modern times the old doctrine that well-being does not consist alone of bread and meat, and that, the humbly placed may be as joyous as the great.

 " Each is not for its own sake,

 I say the whole earth and all the stars in the

 Sky are for religion's sake.

 That was the say of Whitman, the greatest thinker of America ; and, understanding " for religion's sake" in its broadest sense, it is the say of Ruskin and all others of the new school of Economics. 

"Each man should seek to satisfy his needs with the least possible exertion" is the dictum of the Freetrade economists who ushered in the industrial era of civilisation, and the spirit of that statement has largely dominated life since. But no more pernicious doctrine could be imagined. When for it is substituted the faith that each man should love his work for his work's sake, should love humanity for humanity's sake, and should strive for a clean and beautiful world for his own sake, then happiness will be a nearer haven. The opportunity for satisfying desires is not happiness, so that the pursuit of that opportunity is not the pursuit of happiness. When that is recognised greed will be abandoned and well-being pervade the air. It is to attempt an impossible reversion of the natural order of progress to seek after material good first, preaching the increase in the riches of some and the decrease in the riches of others as the sole way to the happiness of the world.

National Advocate (Bathurst, NSW ),  21 September 1896 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article156707409

William Morris on Socialism.

 The utterances of William Morris, " poet of the people" and author of  " News from Nowhere " and other works, should be extremely interesting to students of the Labour movement at the present time when some Australasian reformers show such a tendency to resort to so-called Liberalism. Writing in the FORUM, Mr. Morris says : " There is no progress possible to European civilisation save in the direction of Socialism; for the Whig or Individualist idea which destroyed the mediæval idea of association, and culminated in the French revolution and the rise of the great industries in England, has fulfilled its function or worked itself out. The Socialistic idea has at last taken hold of the workmen, even in Great Britain, and they are pushing it forward practically, though in a vague and unorganised manner. The governing classes feel themselves compelled to yield more or less to the vague demands of the workmen. But, on the other hand, the definitely reactionary forces of the country have woken up to the danger to privilege involved in those demands, and are attacking Socialism in front instead of passing it by in contemptuous silence.

 *    *    * 

"The general idea of Socialism is widely accepted amongst the thoughtful part of the middle classes, even where their timidity prevents them from definitely joining the movement. The old political parties have lost their traditional shibboleths, and are only hanging on till the new party (which can only be a Socialistic one) is formed : the Whigs and Tories will then coalesce to oppose it; the Radicals will some of them join this reactionary party, and some will be absorbed by the Socialist ranks. That this process is already going on is shown by the last general election. Socialism has not yet formed a party in Great Britain, but it is essential that it should do so, and not become a mere tail of the Whig Liberal party, which will only use it for its own purposes and throw it over when it conveniently can. The Socialist party must include the whole of the genuine labour movement — that is, whatever in it is founded on principle, and is not a mere temporary business squabble ; it must also include all that is definitely Socialist amongst the middle class; and it must have a simple test in accordance with its one aim— the realisation of a new society founded on the practical equality of condition for all, and general association for the satisfaction of the needs of those equals. The sooner this party is formed, and the reactionists find themselves face to face with the Socialists, the better. For whatever checks it may meet with on the way, it will get to its goal at last, and SOCIALISM will melt into SOCIETY."

Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 11 July 1896 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70932803

SOCIALISM AND PRACTICAL WORK.

 At the Pan-Anglican Congress, when the subject of "Socialism and Christianity" was under discussion, there came on the platform one Mr. J. M. Ludlow, who was described as "the last survivor of the Socialism of 1848." This he by no means is, but he belongs to a class of enthusiasts, who freely spent their money and gave their time to the propagation of what they believed would produce a New Moral World. Mr. Ludlow was one among the Christian Socialists, and he said that his venerated master was Professor Maurice, whose Socialism meant "the bringing of men together into one community and force." We do not pretend to understand the definition, which is about as vague and useless as it well could be, but we may admire the earnestness of the men of those days, who had such a touching faith in human nature, and who made so many sacrifices for their creed. Mr. Holyoake, in his "History of Co-operation, says that "50 years ago men had profound faith in the near advent of a new condition of society"— that is, certain men — and as these words were written more than 30 years ago, we see that a century has nearly elapsed since there was a social movement far stronger and far more influential than anything that we see at the present day. On the other hand, there have been great advances made by the workers in the way of organisation, at least in Great Britain, but not much in the direction which the Socialists advocated or desired, nor even in the direction of the kind of co-operation which was so enthusiastically fought for by the author of the history from which we have quoted, and from which we can gather so much minute information as to the men and women who so heartily fought in a cause which they believed was to regenerate the world. A Socialistic poet has told us that "great thoughts go down like stars sublime," for he, too, was conscious of failure, but we may conclude that they do not go down unless there is some inherent defect in them which prevents them growing with the years into a great structure which can withstand the shocks of time and chance. What is the defect in these Socialistic ideas which has prevented the hopes of those who fought for them being realised, being, in fact, as far as we can see, as far from becoming an industrial principle as they were a hundred, or even thousands of years ago, for they are about as old as society itself? This seems to be really the one useful inquiry in connection with this industrial problem. We have already seen that the assumption of an all-wise State, as in Plato's Republic," More's "Utopia," "The City of the Sun," and the dozen of imaginary Societies, is unwarranted, for no such community has ever existed, so long as the State reflects public opinion and current intelligence. The consequent assumption, common to all ideal Societies, that the people will do only what the State ordains, and will do it without coercion, is demonstrably equally fallacious, so that the actual foundation of all these beautiful ideals vanishes as soon as it is examined by the clear light of the actual facts, as disclosed by the experience of all the ages since the world began. Thus, we see at once why the high hopes of the 30's and 40's were never realised, why Robert Owen, and others with him, spent their fortunes in vain, even though they had the help of the Church and the countenance of Royalty. No doubt, much has been done in one way, but it is not in the way which those enthusiasts desired or expected.

It is of importance that we should get at the facts, because there is a revival of the former beliefs, and the same fallacies and delusions are current which misled our fathers and their fathers before them. We are, indeed, going over the old ground, and in the belief that we are making a new path of our own. If one can see where the error is, we may prevent another era of fruitless endeavour, to end, perhaps, in another period of Imperial tyranny, which seems to be the usual way in which a crumbling society is reconstituted. If we take Holyoake's definition of Co-operation, and no one will doubt his entire sympathy with, and devotion to, the workers, we shall see at once how many fallacies are even now current, and how hopeless are many of the things now sought. He defines Co-operation to be :—" The right of the worker to a share of the common gain, in the proportion to which he contributes to it in capital, labour, or trade —by hand or head and this is the only equality that is meant." This is, of course, not Socialism in many of its aspects, but it may be regarded as what is the aim of many who are dissatisfied with the existing labour conditions. It is the best endeavour to unite Capital and Labour for the general welfare. But, it presents an initial difficulty of a formidable, practically insurmountable, character. How are we to determine what each contributes by his hand or his head ? Holyoake was not so foolish as to tell us that all wealth is the product of labour, for he has said that ignorance is the one great cause of poverty and failure, so that here at once we find ourselves face to face with the fundamental question whether the man who finds the capital, the brains to conceive, and the capacity to carry out, is to receive no more than the man who mechanically feeds a machine which a genius has invented and a capitalist has had the means and the intellect to provide, and the courage to take all the risks of a new industry, and the chance of finding a market. The definition is, no doubt, a strictly correct one of the only possibly practicable form of Co-operation, but, being so, it carries with it conclusions altogether opposed to many that are now current, and which may be said to be at the base of most of the Labour agitations. What is more, this so-called "typical agitator" has to tell his disciples that they are mistaken in their belief that they would be better off if they did not work for the Capitalist. He tells them that if they acted for themselves alone, and worked for themselves alone, "they would be mere savages, without food, except what they could catch or fight for." From all this we can only reach the conclusion that Capital and Labour must work together, so that the sole question is, what should be their respective shares in the products of industry. The assertion that all is due to Labour is false on the face of it, as we have seen many times already, for without Capital and Brains there can be no great industry, and least of all under modern conditions. There is nothing to prevent Labour finding both the Capital and the Brains, if it is educated enough to do so, but it will not get the Brains for nothing, nor will it get the necessary ability unless it is prepared to pay for it. And, thus we see, after a survey of all that has been done and hoped during the last hundred years, that we come back to where we started. The workers must work out their problems for themselves, by learning to closely apply the means which they possess, and by cultivation of those qualities which are absolutely necessary to the success of all industrial enterprises. The State can only remove obstacles in the way.

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. ), 1908, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12682302

CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIALISM.

 [By Rev. A.C. SUTHERLAND, M.M., B.D.]

The dullest eye among us cannot but discern the existence everywhere of a social disunion of the same kind as that which alarmed St. Paul at Corinth, and against which he so powerfully expostulated and argued, The schism in the Corinthian Church was something quite distinct from party spirit, in which men range themselves under special leaders to give effect to special views, without in any way endangering organic unity. In such a conflict the " base and the honorable," to quote Isaiah, the noble and the peasant, the rich man and the poor, may serve under the same banner. But matters assume a very different complexion when the cause of disunion is found to be, not differences between man and man in the exercise of their reason, but differences between orders, ranks, classes as such. Obviously the struggle in this case will be more terrible, more war to the death, than in the other. St. Paul felt this, and put forth his full strength to avert the calamity.

 At Corinth this disunion, this war of classes arose, because on the one hand the great in gifts, in money, in authority, were contemptuous to those who had no genius, no place or office ; and on the other these last felt that as matters stood they did not belong to the body, had none of its privileges ; that, in short, for them there was no body.

 Now what is the position of our civilisation at this moment ? The democracy has secured after a hard struggle its political emancipation —its right to govern itself. But as usual the visions of regeneration, of peace and plenty, have not been realised. Reform Bills have not filled all our larders, have not rid the land of misery, of want, oppression, and injustice. From the hovel of the farm laborer, and from the foul lanes of our great cities is heard a cry like the cry from the clay pits of Egypt. Of old the remedy was supposed to lie in the abolition of privilege; now the remedy is sought for in making the Government do the work now done by our merchants, manufacturers, farmers, butchers, and costermongers. Not long since men thought they were serving humanity by pulling the strong teeth of the central power, but now they are to be sharpened. Now this tremendous change of feeling is not without reason. No one is quite satisfied with the existing state of society—not the wage-receiver, not the capitalist, for he is not without his anxieties in presence of the mutterings of discontent heard on every side. Listen to the indictment which the great founder of modern socialism, Karl Marx, brings against society as now constituted. " Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labor are brought about at the cost of the individual laborer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over and exploitation of the producers; they mutilate the laborer into fragments of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labor process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness ; they transform his lifetime into working-time, and drag his wife and child under the wheels of the Juggernaut of Capital. . . . . The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation; this law rivets the laborer to capital more firmly than did the wedges of Vulcan Prometheus to the rocks. It establishes an accumulation of misery corresponding with an accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is therefore at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole."

 Now in this powerful and lurid description of the laboring classes there is enough of truth to sting and to make us uneasy; but it is a manifest exaggeration, and as applied to labor as a whole even false. Still when one calls to mind the fact that in a city like Glasgow some 40 per cent. of the population live in dwellings of one room, and tries to imagine what is implied in that fact, we shall not be surprised that the system under which it is possible should be denounced by earnest men, who seek to raise the fallen and let the sunshine in to their dark haunts. Socialism there draws its strength from thwarted aspirations, and from the seething mass of human misery, bodily and mental, whose presence chills our enjoyments at the feast of civilisation.

 I am not going to trouble you with a definition of Socialism. That would not help us much. Our working classes have secured their political rights, political equality, and power to vote, none making them afraid. They have also won at a great price the right to combine for their own protection against the power of capital, and so have razed to the ground much of its former tyranny and even cruelty. Then education, cheap literature, public discussion in the press and on the platform, have awakened in the minds of our toilers new desires, new tastes, a higher sense of comfort and refinement. But, toil as they may, they feel that the vast majority are doomed to be shut out from the sweetness, culture, and fullness of life, which the more fortunate few have within their reach. So they are in revolt, as is too manifest, against the existing social relations, political and spiritual; and the remedy is Socialism. The laborer feels that much of his labor goes to feed and clothe those who don't labor in his sense, or indeed in any sense. Thus he is not only hungry, badly clothed, badly housed, but what is more intolerable he knows or believes that his misery is due not to the nature of things, but to downright injustice. He has been taught that it is all a question of supply and demand, of the strong and energetic against the weak and listless. So the laborer looks to the strong hand of the State to help him in his need. He calls upon the State to redress social inequalities, as it has already redressed political inequalities. This is to be effected by making land and capital the property of the community, thus sweeping away profit, interest, rent, leaving to the individual only what he actually earns by hand or head. A man under this regime might possess a razor to shave, but not a plough or a spinning-wheel— these two being instruments of production.

 This view of social life is now an actual force in our modern world, and a very potent force. Even where it is not accepted it is influential and operative. It has passed beyond the stage of neglect and ridicule, and has reached the field of serious conflict. In its ranks are to be found men of profound speculative grasp, of creative genius, and of warm piety. Statesmen are advocating its claims in the Senate, poets are insinuating its doctrines in melodious verse, and it is no longer a stranger even in great universities. It has produced a literature great in quantity and brilliant in quality. It has its newspapers and periodicals in abundance. Whatever we may think of its soundness or practicability it cannot be ignored, either by the Church or the State. Many good men hold it is true that the Church as a spiritual agency should stand aloof from politics. But Presbyterianism has from the first striven to influence and mould the whole national life, and not without success. We shall be unworthy of our history if we retire to our spiritual homes and let the issue be decided without us.

  With regard to the relation of Christianity and Socialism, they have much in common. To disown Adam Smith is not of necessity to disown Christ, though by the way Adam Smith does not teach absolute competition, but competition conditioned by justice between man and man, which justice the State is to enforce Christianity then in my opinion has nothing but blessings to bestow on socialism, in so far as it is in the first place an expression of intense sympathy with the hard and cheerless lot of vast numbers of those who do the drudgery work of the world, and in no far as it is a protest against those who lie upon beds of ivory, drink wine in bowls, but are not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph. The whole Bible is one long demand for justice to the poor and the needy, especially when they are the victims of social arrangements. The young lion is roaring for his prey, and much of that roar the gospel does not condemn but welcomes, and gives due warning to those who would in their strength and self-indulgence or ambition put him off with pleasant words. Socialism does well in thundering in the ears of Dives that there is a Lazarus outside his palace gates to whom the law of supply and demand does not apply and ought not to be applied, but who has a claim of a quite different kind. The gospel is distinctly, and indeed in an awful way, upon the side of Lazarus. It tacitly enforces that a man may fall into a condition so terrible as to make the ministration of the brute creation a grateful service, through not fault of his own, neither through idleness, nor intemperance, nor want of foresight, nor thrift, but simply through the visitation of God, or through circumstances which hold him in their strong meshes. Many comfortable people imagine that all misery is in some form sin. Socialism points out with power that the sin often lies at the door, not of the famishing wretch, but at a door much more respectable and higher up the street. The gospel seeks to abolish hunger and nakedness and misery, stuntedness of soul and of body, and so far as Socialism has this end we can only wish it God speed, and take our share in the work of leading men from the arid deserts into a land flowing with milk and honey.

 But, secondly, Socialism is in the same ranks with Christianity when it loudly protests against a pessimistic and fatalistic acquiescence in wretchedness from whatever cause "Whatever is is best," is a maxim hateful to Isaiah and Karl Marx alike. In so far as Socialism preaches hope for humanity it forsakes paganism and appropriates the spirit of Christ. Every Christian should welcome the energy with which it insists on the possibility of cleansing our human styes, of clothing naked backs, and of filling empty stomachs and still more empty souls.

 Thirdly, Socialism is Christian in so far as it asserts that the weal of the individual is contingent on the weal of the society. Especially valuable is the teaching of the Old Testament in this connection, and should be carefully studied by us all. Under the ancient dispensation the salvation of the individual was scarcely possible even in thought, apart from the salvation of the nation. Christianity has of course modified and purified that doctrine, but has not destroyed it; and Carlyle taught us long ago that if we don't recognise our brother by sharing our wine and milk and oil with him he will prove his brotherhood with us by compelling us to share with him his cholera and typhus.

 Fourthly, Socialism is Christian in its attacks on the principles underlying the maxim —" May I not do what I will with my own ?" I quote tho words not in the sense in which they were used by Christ as a defence of generosity in giving another more than he had earned. Socialism demands that this "my own" give an account—how did it come? what share have others in it? have their claims been recognised? is its enjoyment the misery of others? its glory their shame? People dare not now speak on this point as they did even a quarter of a century ago. I can myself remember a respected county gentleman saying on the hustings, in response to some heckling land reformer, that when the leases of his tenants should expire he had a perfect moral as well as legal right to turn them all out and plant his fields with furze. Law has already invaded his legal right, and public opinion, in the formation of which Socialism has had no mean influence, has made the moral right a very shadowy one. The Socialist in this case wears a portion of the mantle of Moses and St. James. Both put very practical limits on this "my own" principle. Both sought to check its tendency to excessive accumulation and to irresponsible use. The law of inheritance, the law of interest, the Sabbatic year of the jubilee, the law of pledges, take great liberties with private property. There laws are not binding on us, and 'twere folly to imitate them. I may say here that the land question is a moral question, and not merely an economic or political one. Scotch crofters and the slums of Edinburgh, where I labored for some time, and where I have seen 143 people living under the same roof, some at them down in the bowels of the earth, and others familiar with the whistlings of the east wind at an elevation which would make a rook giddy, lead me to hold that speculation in land in immoral, and is the cause of immorality. The recent revelations in Melbourne has confirmed the faith of my youth. Let us have a jubilee of some kind to check this disastrous trafficking with a view to a gain which has not really been earned, and which has corrupted many not ignoble men. The Socialist has drawn attention to St James, and though Luther called his letter one of straw, the madness of the prophet has been rebuked by the Socialistic ass, in this case more familiar with the angel of God than the leader of the Reformation. The teaching of the New Testament on health has not been so thoroughly assimilated by the Christian Church as much of the rest of its teaching. Compare the feeling of men in general with respect to covetousness and intemperance. Does that feeling reflect the teaching of Christ and His apostles. I much doubt. We shall have good cause to thank Socialists if they lead us to give the same prominence as the New Testament to the horror and mischievousness of the sin which has possession of its sphere.

 It is with feelings of regret that after having marched so far under the banner of Socialism one finds himself constrained to fall out of the ranks and become a critic with doubts in his mind rather than an unquestioning follower. I am afraid that taken as a whole, though not without earnest exceptions, popular Socialism is not in sympathy with Christianity, either in its methods or its motives. True! what goes under the name of Christian Socialism, so far from denying Christianity, affirms that it is the ripe fruit of Christianity; that only as Socialism becomes established can the redemption of Christ have free course and be glorified among men. Much of what may be said will not apply to the Christian Socialist. Significantly enough the hardest blows the Christian Socialist gets in the way of argument and ridicule come from Socialists and not from so-called individualists. It is too manifest that the great majority of Socialists are not only opposed to Christianity, but are inspired with a fanatical zeal in seeking to erase it from among men. One says "I will relate how I left the Church and became a Socialist. I discovered that my belief gave me never anything to eat. With five hungry children about me this argument was conclusive." Hear what another says;—" To suppress religion which promises an illusory happiness is to establish the claims of real happiness, for to demonstrate the non-existence of these illusions tends toward suppressing a state of things which requires illusions for maintaining its own existence."—(Benoit Malon.) The name doctrine is graphically put by George Eliot in the mouth of Felix Holt:—" They'll supply us with a religion, like everything else, and get a profit on it; they'll give us plenty of heaven —we may have land there. That is the sort of religion they like —a religion that gives a working man heaven and nothing else. But we'll offer to change with them. Well give them back some of their heaven, and take it out in something for us and our children in this world"—a social organisation of labor, resting on materialism, with no room for God or worship, and whose promised land is temporal prosperity at as little personal toil as possible, and with no care. But further, if Christianity is offensive to the intellectual conclusions of the prevailing Socialism, if it furnishes no bread for hungry stomach, it is also a stumbling-block to the moral sense of its leading advocates. They tell us that the worship of Ceres or Bacchus could not be more repugnant to the feelings of the early Christians than Christianity is in our time to those who look for salvation to the transfer of capital from the individual to the State Parodying one of our Lord's fundamental utterances they say ye cannot serve "God" and humanity. The only hopeful thing about this coarse materialism is that its acceptance by men, at least not for long, is impossible. No Socialism can rid our life of accident, of pain, of sin, of remorse, and fatalism does not speak to the heart in its captivity. Human nature, we may be sure, though it may be thrown into revolt and confusion for the moment, will ever find its hope in the cross.

 But even where Socialism is not a denial of Christianity and its spiritual postulates, but the reverse, it seems to me that in its very nature it is opposed to the spirit of Christ. Let me present a brief discussion and defence of this somewhat strong statement. 1. Socialism would seem to revive the conditions of the ancient world which were swept away, in measure at least, by His gospel. In paganism the individual had to a great extent no rights as against the State, especially no rights so far as the free expression of his inner life was concerned. Like nature it was careful of the type, but allowed the individual to wither. But it is of more importance to call to mind that Judaism, with its minute and elaborate regulation of the whole, or at any rate a great part of a man's life, became an intolerable burden to the noblest minds among its children. At every point they were met with rule this and rule that, so that spontaneity of service was impossible, making life grievous to the conscientious, and leading those who were otherwise to a perfunctory and casuistical formalism. It is of course not denied but asserted that this severe and minute discipline imposed upon men from a central source had its uses, and issued in characters of the highest order, in all spheres of human life, public and private, civil and religious, industrial and military. But it was not and could not be final. It was for the schoolboy and not for the mature man. Nor is it forgotten that it dealt largely with matters which Socialism ignores ; that it does not give the same prominence to food and clothing, shelter and amusement, that Socialism does. It sought its end by regulation from without—so does Socialism. It failed, and could not but fail, when the fulness of time came and men ceased to be children, or soldiers merely accustomed to take orders from their superiors. It is significant that Socialists see in the army a model of what life should be generally. Our soldiers are relieved from all care regarding their daily bread, their tailor's bill, and their rents. This discipline gives us men ready to dare anything or go anywhere. Heroism, in short, is the child of the drill-sergeant and a national commissariat. A similar regime applied to life generally would secure similar desirable results. But would it? I don't wait to point out that no army can, like a democracy, be a government for the army and by the army. If it were I venture to say that the first ballot would dissolve every army in Europe, and its members would prefer the risk of starvation and of a patched coat with a free life to the comfort which necessitates the subjection of the will and intellect to regulations from without. Desertion even is not uncommon, not only on the part of the forced conscript, and in the Socialistic army we should be all forced conscripts, but even on the part of the volunteer. Now, I admit that drill and the negation of spontaniety which it involves develops strength of character along certain lines, but does not do so along all the lines of our humanity. But as Christ came to make us perfect this regimentalism cannot be his method, as indeed it is not. To reach his end, personal freedom, personal responsibility, contact with risk of loss, of danger, of poverty, are essential. Not that he makes liberty an end in itself, but rather a means toward attaining the perfection of our being, and of subduing our circumstances to aid us and not to hinder us in this supreme object. Socialism is a beggarly element in what pertains to the higher things of the spirit.

 But Socialism sins in another way against the Gospel of Christ. It practically denies a difference of faculty in men, and so explains our social inequalities to be the result of arbitrary injustice. All men are brethren in Christ. True, but as in nature one star differs from another in glory, and that by the decree of the Almighty, so there is a brother of low degree and a brother of higher degree—one member of the body to honor and another comparatively speaking to dishonor. Now the Gospel teaches that this inferior member is to have more abundant honor, but never that it is to be put absolutely on the same level with the superior, nor that it is of the same value with the superior. This may seem harsh to those who have not the higher gifts, but facts are facts, whatever may be our feelings. This arrangement of high and low is God's arrangement, and it is absurd as well as sinful to resent it. Indeed, Socialism itself could not live without respecting it In theory the shoemaker may be as valuable to the State as the Prime Minister, the simple member of the church as an apostle, the hodman as the skilled physician, the clerk as the poet, but in practice the thing would be impossible. Does Socialism really think that there would be no scramble under its regime to drop the pick and shovel and secure a place among its vast array of governing officers, and that there would be no sulking among the dis appointed or among those ordered by authority to serve at the forge or the mine. On this rock Socialism would go to pieces. The Gospel, truer to nature, recognises destinations springing from higher gifts, but takes care to teach that they are to be used for the help of the lesser gifted. It knows nothing of a levelling equality, which only breeds envy, rebellion, and a sinful discontent, though there is a discontent that is not sinful, but praiseworthy, because it is the starting point towards higher things.

 Once more Socialism, not merely on the part of its wilder and more reckless advocates, but through some of its most scientific exponents, teach doctrines regarding the family which subvert the deliverances of Christianity on this grave matter. It permits the dissolution of family ties for reasons which the Christ does not recognise as valid. Further, Socialism denies not only the competency of parents to educate their children as good citizens ought to be educated, but also their right and responsibility in the matter. Their nurture as to its methods and end must be determined by the State. If religion is regarded as a necessary factor in education the form of that religion would rest with the secular power. One need not add that the New Testament contemplates a very different relation between parent and child.

 Further Socialism is at variance with Christianity in its doctrine as to the inherent degradation of laboring for wages. We have every reason to believe that our Lord gave the labor of his hands for wages, and that not to the State, but to the individual who might require it He speaks much about the right use of money, directly and in parable, but never drops a hint that there is anything sinister in the idea of hired labor, whether regarded from the point of view of the hirer or the hired. Of course this does not imply that the actual relation between the two is in practice what it ought to be.

 There is another aspect of Socialism which the followers of Jesus Christ cannot but regards with aversion—its relation to liberty of conscience. The Fabian Essays foretell that one of the changes to be effected by Socialism will be the inevitable reconstitution of the State Church on a democratic basis, so that the possibility opens up of the election of an avowed Freethinker like Mr. Bradlaugh and John Morley to the Deanery of Westminster. They are kind enough to tell us that this will not take place until the settlement of the bread-and-butter question leaves men free to use and develop our higher faculties. Now, there is nothing here of that foaming hatred to Christianity which is cherished by the great body of Socialists. Nevertheless it anticipates State control of other things than the instruments of production. The Church is not to be co-ordinate with the State, but a creation and so a creature of the State. This is pure and undiluted paganism. Christianity is not Democracy—Jesus Christ is King, absolute King of His Church, and not a President voted to His exalted position. It is very significant that Socialists see much to admire, not in the faith of the medieval Church, but in its all embracing organisation, surrounding men everywhere as closely as the atmosphere. It is equally significant that they refer to Protestantism in terms which might be borrowed from an Anglo-Catholic priest, or even Pio Nono of pious memory. Will there be room for Socrates, for St Peter, for Knox, for Cranmar, for non juring bishops under this new democratic Catholicism of politicians? My soul, come not thou into their secret. It is significant, too, that many great intellects who felt that men could not be managed without the drill-sergeant, inclined to intolerance. Plato, in his old age, forgot his " defence of Socrates." and insisted on putting to death those who should introduce new doctrines in politics or religion. T. Carlyle had, I fear, more faith in the police than in the preacher as an agent in human progress.

 Lastly, experience and the teaching of Christ are at one in condemning the excessive hopes which Socialism builds in State regulation for the amelioration of man's outward and inward life. The settlement of the bread and butter question on Socialistic lines will not issue in a Paradise of peace and plenty, of culture and energy. What do we see at this moment among ourselves? Trades unions among our working men failing to attract a majority of themselves, while their indirect result is to band employers together as one man. Trades unions are feeling that they can't attain their end on materialistic grounds; that the moral element must come into play. Promises of more bread and more butter fail to influence many laborers as the trades unions desire, because a present sacrifice of purse and will is demanded.

 The Gospel is clear—that given all possible external advantages these are not enough to make either a man or a nation what they ought to be. There is the awful fact of sin to be reckoned with. Life is developed, not by bread and butter settlements, but from within. Till the kingdom of God is in men's hearts it will never hold sway over their circumstances.

Advertiser (Adelaide, SA ), Tuesday 18 October 1892,

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25339682