The Gospel of Wealth.

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We publish to-day, by the special request of Mr Gladstone (says the Pall Mall Budget, of July 18), a remarkable article by Mr Andrew Carnegie, the well-known Pittsburgh ironmaster and millionaire, which appeared in the North American Review. The article had attracted the notice of Mr Gladstone, who has spoken in the highest terms with regard to it, and strongly urged its publication in this country. Mr Gladstone writes : — I have asked Mr Lloyd Bryce (North American Review) kindly to allow the republication in this country of the extremely interesting article on " Wealth,” by Mr Andrew Carnegie, which has just appeared in America ”

 THE PROBLEM OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF WEALTH.

 The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionised, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are to-day where civilised man then was. When visiting the Sioux; I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was just like the others in external appearance, and even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to day measures the change which has come with civilisation. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential, for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilisation, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Mæcenas. The “good old times" were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both —not the least so to him who serves and would sweep away civilisation with it. But whether the change be for good or ill it is upon us, beyond our power to alter, and therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is a waste of time to criticise the inevitable.

 THE CHANGE, AND THE PRICE WE PAY FOR IT. 

It is easy to see how the change has come. One illustration will serve for almost every phase of the cause. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, as stimulated nod enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly articles were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to be masters, there was little or no change is their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was, substantially, social, equality, and even political equality for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then little or no political voice in the State.

 THE PRICE WE PAY IS VERY GREAT.

 But the inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was crude articles at high prices. To-day the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the farmer had a few generations ago. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and better housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the King could then obtain. The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse with them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity. 

THE MAN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE MONEY.

 The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for organisation and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in affairs always rate the man whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can occupy, because the great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward or fall behind ; to stand still is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affairs, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.

 OUR DUTY IS TO DO WHAT IS PRACTICABLE NOW.

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it, has been with any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes proposed, we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilisation itself rests, for civilisation took its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, " If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap," and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilisation itself depends—the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the right of the millionaire to his millions. To those who propose to substitute Communism for the intense Individualism the answer therefore is : The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present foundation, Individualism—that is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, realising Swedenborg's idea of Heaven, where, as he says, the angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for self, but for each other—even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is, That is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of æons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot now. It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as to favor the destruction of individualism, private property, the law of accumulation of wealth, and the law of competition; for these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, these laws sometimes operate, and perfect as they appear to the idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.

 [TO BE CONTINUED ]

Tasmanian News (Hobart, Tas.), 26 August 1889 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article172872416

Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE has contributed the " Gospel of Wealth " to a London journal. He is effusively described as a " well-known Pittsburg ironmaster and millionaire." He is, in fact, an adventurous Scotsman who has made a fortune in America in one of the districts where it has been proved by tho Atlantic Monthly that the wages are paid on an extremely low scale, lower even than prevails in England. We certainly do not find fault with him for making the most of the country of his adoption, any more than we should blame him because of the land of his nativity. But Mr.ANDREW CARNEGIE, having now become an ironmaster and a millionaire, is inclined to lecture the whole world, and to tell every son of ADAM, rich or poor, exactly what he ought to do in his particular station. The wealthy are to learn their duties from him, and the poor are supposed to stand agape at the benefits he condescends to offer them. Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE is a man of wealth, and he poses before the world as if he were giving a donation to a Caledonian society and expecting the applause of the members. We have no doubt that the human race will rejoice in his patronage. But he once made a vain attempt to show Great Britain what her policy ought to be, and the effort was altogether in vain. We have some fears that the society of mankind may be equally perverse and stiff-necked.

A citizen of the United States, Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE believes in advertising, and he has contrived to get the marvellous announcement that his opinions are published " at the special " request of Mr. GLADSTONE." His views, suddenly blazoned forth upon the world under such auspices, certainly demand attention ; and we can hardly do more than state them briefly. Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE believes that there was a time in English history when the master and the workman stood together in the same social and political scale. If any students should think otherwise, if they should imagine that the master had a despotic power over his apprentices even to the extent of flogging them, then we may assume that he has missed Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE'S idea of the development of society. But we are certainly surprised to hear that this ideal condition of an equality between master and workman was utterly bad. Manufacturing, it seems, was badly done, and the prices were excessive. We forbear, of course, to refer to the splendid work that came from the British looms even before the introduction of steam, or to the silver work that was one of the glories of the older industrial London, or to many other things that might be noticed. We can only follow Mr. CARNEGIE in his breath-less progress to the unequal condition of the nineteenth century. At the present time we learn with gratitude that the best work is done at the cheapest possible rate, a statement that reminds us of a "selling-off advertisement." But unfortunately the equality between master and workman has disappeared. Society has to pay a very high price for the cheap articles that it enjoys. Men and women are grouped together into factories, and the old relationship between the employer and his work-people has disappeared. It seems, so far as we can gather, that Mr. CARNEGIE is not personally acquainted with all his workmen, and that to many of them the employer is a " mere myth," a man whom they never see, and whom they cannot know. The master makes a profit, and the men make their wages, and there is no bond between them. On the one side the successful Mr. CARNEGIE finds, what many industrial pioneers have never found, that wealth accumulates in the hands of the employer. On the other side, he wishes to give his patronage to the wage earners.

Having got so far, we should naturally imagine that the " ironmaster and millionaire " of Pittsburg would seek to cultivate the acquaintance of all his workmen. This, however, is only the device, we may suppose, of aristocrats, who invite their subordinates to Christmas dinners and other festivities. At any rate, it is far from the millionaire's thoughts. He has decided to settle the whole disputes between capital and labour in one brief article. And in the pursuit of knowledge regarding human society we must follow his ideas. He has discovered that society has progressed from socialism to individualism, the meaning of which we take to be that it has advanced from the tribal to the American millionaire system. He has discovered further that even in America, the land of large fortunes and a stringent law of inheritance, too much may be made of individualism. He feels it to be his duty, therefore, in the interest of a struggling humanity, to reconcile these two things. From Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE'S point of view the solution is very easy. There ought, of course, to be the fullest scope for individual effort and for money-making on the part of every citizen. It would be a total mistake to distribute wealth among the masses in small sums in the shape of increased labour or cheaper products. The average man could not put the money to the same beneficial uses as Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE, who is helping on the development of humanity. On this point we confess that his arguments are convincing. He cites the example of Cooper's Institute, and asks triumphantly whether the donor could have done the same amount of good if he had spent his money among the poor in his lifetime. He refers with equal gusto to Tildon's Library, and asks whether the same benefit would have accrued to the community if the giver had distributed his wealth in small sums. He tells us that money used in charity is generally badly spent, and that we should only help those who help themselves. On the whole, we come to the very comfortable doctrine, which we should support on other grounds, that the man who has the faculty of accumulating money should be allowed to do so, because in order to accumulate he must know how to employ it in profitable industries. So far we might sympathise with Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE'S triumph in his own arguments. There is no necessity for distributing any man's accumulated wealth. On the contrary, it is probably employed to the better advantage of the whole community than if it were broken up.

But now Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE branches off into his theory. The man who makes money should be left undisturbed, but his family should not inherit more than a competency, whatever that may mean. The "almighty dollar " is a blessing if you live for it and accumulate it ; it is a curse if you inherit it. This is the new gospel of wealth. Increase the death duties, the probate duties, according to Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE, and society will be at peace, and the millionaire and the pauper, the economist and the socialist, will dine together. It is difficult to say what society may do, but we venture to say that Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE'S vulgar and arrogant self-complacency is no solution of any difficulty whatever.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. ), 31 August 1889 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article6275267

THE NEW SOCIAL ATTITUDE.

 Parallel reactions in the United States towards individualism in politics and evangelism in religion and tendencies of similar movements in Australia provoke enquiry whether they possess interest beyond the coincident. President Wilson, representing the rising tide of public opinion in the great Republic, insists on tariff reduction, not merely as a means of lowering the high cost of living but as essential to the full development of the virility of the people. To him State coddling implies privilege, monopoly, abuse, and consequent contraction of opportunity, freedom, and vigour. A paraphrase of a familiar injunction indicates his attitude:— "Seek first national character and all other things will be added." National character denotes a robust development of the individual by way of idealism and struggle, faith and works. President Wilson's political interpretation of the process consists of a larger patriotism and a wider liberty, a patriotism which is not content with the appearance of great men in this generation, but aims at the production of even greater successors, and a liberty which destroys such privilege and restriction as depress the life of the community. Caste or class privilege inflicts even greater wrong than extortion. The worst evil of tyranny, particularly the insidious kinds, is that it represses energy and forms a slavish mind. The contemporaneous religious movement in the United States contemplates the recovery of the virility of the churches, and these are presenting to men, who constitute the large outside majority, an attractive programme of evangelistic enthusiasm. Thus far the parallel reactions appear to be founded on the one principle that the true method of raising the public tone is by restoring faith and hope, for which purpose it is first necessary to free and develop the self-activity of the individual.

 One significance of the movements in question is that they point to an approaching change in the social temper and attitude of the age. The generation which experienced the full effects of Darwin's and Huxley's teachings is being succeeded by another which returns after a brief diversion upon the unfathomable intuitions of the human heart. A materialistic or negative outlook upon life cannot fail to rebound in politics in a narrow or provincial patriotism, and a doctrine of might which is the basis of privilege and enslavement. Flamboyant Imperialism is at root a selfish centralism, and classism a miserable game of "begger my neighbour." The gradual growth of the democratic spirit, to which Dickens largely contributed by displaying the humanness of the poor and despised, may be regarded as a protest of the ''hope which springs eternal in the human breast" against the pessimism and cynicism incident to a transition period, for the claims of democracy as well as its guarantees rest upon the universal perception of mystic values. Agnosticism has spent its shot; the Higher Criticism is no longer a spectre; the atom has been dissolved into electrical force, an expression of intelligence; chaos has again given place to form and beauty. With the return of idealism comes a new meaning of life, which will permeate both the political and religious expressions. The dethronement of the mechanical atom in favour of intelligence restores to man his faith, his hope, and his crowning glory. Just as he is indebted to the community for the supply of his material and social needs, he owes to it his best services, his highest sacrifice: and as he can only render these by a full development of his powers, it is to the interest as well as the duty of society to accord him a free course. Individualism and social service or efficiency are the two halves of modern democracy, whose goal is universal friendship and peace. That idealism must finally be based on a religious experience of which evangelism is the outward and visible token. The brotherhood of man will prove an empty sentiment to those who possess it except they act the big brother's part, do justice, welcome the prodigals, and help to restore the unity of the family circle. The ground of rational individualism is the truth that by the law of our being individual development can be alone perfected through the life of the community. The worth and measure of a man are denoted in his treatment of his neighbour. This new gospel is after all old, but its present value is in the special energy and method of application.

Mail (Adelaide, SA ),  1913, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63803224

THE SOCIALISTIC IDEA OF "PERSONAL FREEDOM."

 [FOR THE TOCSIN.]

" 'English principles' mean a primary regard to the interests of property." Thus wrote Emerson in his ' English Traits,' and the remark holds equally good to-day. To us in Australia, and more especially to us who would lay the foundations or an Australian national life that will equal, if not eclipse, all that has been so far great in nationality, this remark of Emerson's should be suggestive of "Australian principles." What should our primary concern be? The interests of property ? No, certainly not. "Australian principles'' should mean a primary regard, not for the State, not for anything that is merely a means towards an end, but the welfare of the individual, which consists in the development of every faculty to the finest degree. And this can only be done by the socialisation, or communalisation, of material commodities, on which the development of the individual as an individual does not depend.

 Havelock Ellis has remarked on the tremendous waste of energy which results from the preparation of a thousand breakfasts when one would suffice. It is not a breakfast that helps the individual to develop. A breakfast merely keeps him alive. There is a vast difference between livelihood and life. The existence of the majority of the people is spent in struggling with the problem of livelihood, the problem of bread and butter; and it is only a Goethe, one man in a thousand, who, having the inclination, also has the opportunity of trying to find the perfect way, that is, to live life as finely and beautifully as possible. Perhaps, everyone will not have the same overmastering desire to live a Goethe life, but everyone should have the opportunity. It is this that lies behind Socialism, this idea of giving everyone an equal opportunity to live a perfect life, and all the much-abused, but wholly misunderstood, "domination of the Labour Party"  is but a means towards this great end.

 What does capitalism do for the living of the perfect life ? It acquiesces in free, compulsory and secular education and free libraries, and that is the most culture it will allow "the masses." Apart from that, it considers "the masses'' should be satisfied with their lot, for which they allege a divine sanction, when in truth the religion they nominally profess teaches just the reverse. And does the capitalist himself use his money to live the perfect life? Not he ! He spends the thousands which he has become possessed of in keeping race horses and yachts and courtesans. He does nothing for art, unless sometimes it is a freak of fashion to lionise some writer, painter, or musician, and then it is usually some posing mediocrity. Meanwhile the poet or inventor perishes, or else wears out his life as a miserable wage-earner, while his head is bursting with his great idea. The life of the average moneyed man or woman is spent in deadening every faculty of beauty and truth, in pursuing a glittering, aimless life, full of frivolity, superficiality, and inanity. The capitalist does not live life himself, and, as William Morris at the conclusion of his "News from Nowhere" says, he won't let other people live their lives either. Both the wage-lord and the wage-serf are deprived of real life under the capitalistic system, which is governed by " English Principles," which, as Emerson says, "mean a primary regard for the interests of property."

 Let us ask, What shall, "Australian principles " mean? And we make answer, the welfare of the individual and the maximum of personal freedom for everybody. The capitalistic apologist would have us believe that capitalism makes for greater personal freedom. In fact, a leaflet lately issued by the Victorian Employers' Federation talks of "the great Anglo-Saxon principle of personal freedom" as the " right to be as free in his work as in his religion." Now, in the first place, there is no such thing as freedom. It is an example of what is called medievalism, or absolutism, in thought to talk of "freedom" as if it were a self-existing entity. Freedom is as subject to relativity as anything else we can think of. And not only does this freedom vary with circumstances, but the word means different things when applied, first to work, and then to religion. Under the present state of affairs, the so-called freedom in work is not freedom at all. Work is the name we give to the process of having to subject the whole of our existence to some task or other, congenial or distasteful, merely to get in return the necessaries to live. Maxim Ghorki somewhere asks Why do we work? To get the necessaries to live. And why do we live? To be able to work. What's the good of that ? we all ask. No good at all. It is not life to be thus eternally going round in a circle and never getting anywhere, Yet it is for this that the capitalist, in a burst of altruism, beautiful to behold, would preserve the " personal freedom " of the worker or wage-earner. This is the doctrine of political individualism, which the capitalist, or his apologist, confuses so artlessly with personal individuality, or the right of the individual to work out his own destiny as well as he may. What has happened here, the logician will tell you, is an ambiguous using of terms. In one place the word "freedom" is used to refer to material things, to the securing of the necessaries of life, and in another place it means the development of a person's individuality, his mind, heart and soul. The material and spiritual aspects of life have been confused by these capitalistic apostles of "personal freedom."

 To allow the capitalist to be "unhampered by Legislative interference" will no doubt make for "personal freedom,'' but when the worker has got that particular brand of "personal freedom" he will be so free that he won't be able to call his soul his own. Mark those words: "To call his soul his own." They mean something, and that something is the Socialistic idea of personal freedom, an idea superior to the capitalistic idea, because it is purged of materialism, and reflects with the light of a higher conception of life. And if "Australian principles '' become synonymous with such a purified idea of " personal freedom," Australia will have taken a great step — a sort of giant's stride — forward.             LERLI.

Tocsin (Melbourne, Vic. ) 1903 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201770378

LIBERTY.

 "THE story of Liberty, how men have struggled to be free, is the epic of humanity," says Sir John Macdonnell, in a recent essay. And, at the same time, he asks us to share his perplexity in defining precisely what liberty means and connotes. An earlier age regarded it as "the right of every man to wallop his  own nigger," a concept crude and tyrannical. The term and the doctrine, we suppose, is as old as the beginning of civil polity, and as new as the latest embodiment of "loving coercion" in restricted statutory enactment. The history of social progress is the record of the continuous and persistant struggle between freedom and authority. We phrase it variously ; as "every citizen is free to exercise his individual will and caprice, within  the law," and "liberty is the only foundation on which democracy can rest securely." The fact is, as Sir John remarks, no word in the language has lent itself more to juggling and sophisms than liberty ; and any discussion of it must be some some abstract. Fifty four years ago Mill published his celebrated essay on Liberty. It was regarded as the true political Bible, from the doctrines of which no future society could reasonably depart. It was profound in reasoning, logical to a degree, authoritative beyond all question ; yet, to-day, under modern ultra-liberal conditions tinged with socialist theories, Mill's axioms are very far indeed from universal acceptance. He framed his principles without reference to problems that in modern times have become urgent. He was concerned more with the individual citizen than with the State of which the citizen was a member. Bentham and the elder Mill, Grote, Molesworth and Buller had argued before him that " the best government is that which governs least," or, in other words, which interferes least with the exercise of individual liberty. And Mill endorsed and expanded that view. For all of them Government was "a necessary evil ;" the less you have of it the better; the less government, the more liberty ; and laissez faire was the last word on the subject. This pure unchecked individualism almost of necessity was despotic and wholly unsuited to the spirit of progress. It developed into "Manchesterism," individualism run riot. It connoted unrestricted competition, every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, and the survival of the fittest. " It was," says another critic, " pre-eminently a creed for the strong, the vigorous,  and the self-reliant; but it had no gospel for the helpless, the hopeless, the incapable, and the downtrodden. Its fatal defect was that  it expected universal selfishness to do the work of universal love." Liberty was a synonym for selfishness; and well might it induce the exclamation against the crimes committed in its name. With liberty thus narrowly interpreted, it is not surprising that progressive humanitarians and social reformers set themselves to overthrow this " dangerous and mischievous superstition. They protested against laissez faire." They repudiated the dismal fatalism which considers all human misery as the necessary product of unalterable law. They shook off the superstition of the Mill school that a man might be at liberty to starve, which was his own concern, and in no wise interested his fellow men. They superseded Manchesterism by the " New Socialism,"' which was nothing more than an appeal to the whole community to save the free individual from being crushed to death in that "infinite jumble and mass and dislocation which men call the Battle of Life." The transition was natural, but the results were startling so far as the old concepts of liberty were concerned. Liberty became not merely the employment of the minimum of restraint, the removal of disabilities : it became much more than that. It announced the new doctrine that true liberty was impossible save with the aid of the State. It insisted that the reality of liberty was not complete without coercive measures, and that "a man is freed when you coerce him for his own good." They called this "loving coercion." With it as a basis, they constructed the whole modern theory of State interference, under which the free man is only free to do what the State dictates, under penalty even of loss of personal liberty. Pushed to the extreme, their concept meant that liberty is conferred upon a man when you put him in prison in order to improve him. Rousseau tells of a gaol over the portals of which was inscribed "Libertas ;" and to read some modern writers it might be supposed that not the Phrigian Cap, but chains and gyves, were its symbol. Nevertheless, the modern concept of liberty is by no means unacceptable. To be free, a man must be independent. The growth of modern democracy has exhibited a double movement corresponding to these two essentials and limitations. " Manchesterism" would thus be impossible in modern democracy. It would be met with Factories Acts, Public Health Acts, Education Acts, and indeed the whole series of compulsory statutary enactments which regulate and control any well balanced and well-governed community—in which men are independent, and deserve to be independent. It is said, in warning, that this new concept of liberty and State interference may be pushed too far; that by travelling far enough east we are in danger of again reaching the west; that liberty may become a sham and a mockery where a free democracy develops into a despotic bureaucracy. And all that is doubtless true enough. Yet the "cure for liberty is more liberty." Given sufficient freedom, men will resist authority overstrained, and will defeat the tyrannous advance of bureaucracy. Sir John Macdonnell looks askance in this respect at the Australian Democracy. He describes our ideals as " magnificent and captivating." We are seeking, he says, a land with no poverty, with no slums, with high wages and ample leisure, with no reserve of unorganised labor, with no great fortunes, and with a general high standard of comfort. It may, he thinks, be all for the best; but, he adds, " it is to be realised by restrictions and  compulsions; it is no more a state of liberty than was the condition of things in the Roman Empire in  the time of Trajan and the Antonines, when, only the Image of  Liberty remaining, the condition of  the human race was, according to Gibbon, the most unhappy ever known." He thinks that the "New Freedom" is very like the old " benevolent despotism." We have slain one kind of tyranny in order to set up another; and we have compassed both ends in the name of liberty. We call it " restraint in the right place;" and democracy can, and does, employ coercion as much as any individual has ever done. We excuse it all, because, in modern phrase, coercion is only a transition or means to a right end, and the end sanctifies the means, and that Liberty in its truest form and essence is the far-off goal. What we need is a nice adjustment between individual liberty and communal good; every citizen must be free to get the highest good out of his own life, thereby conducing to the highest good of the greatest number of his fellows. That is the "perfect law " to which democracy seeks to conform. It is the best expression of liberty. 

Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser (Vic. : 1857 - 1867 ; 1914 - 1918), Monday 1 November 1915, page 2

PROPERTY AND JOHN LOCKE

Standish O'Grady said that James Fintan Lalor, whose brother, Peter, made his own notable contribution to Australian history, was the first to proclaim in the nineteenth century that the land of the world belongs to the people of the world. That doctrine, said the populariser of the Irish Heroic Cycle, was one that would more and more be heard of in the coming times. Right or wrong, it will. As has been written: "The cardinal importance of property for social and political analysis" is becoming more and more "a distinguishing characteristic of the modern world." The trend of the times is towards an examination, or, rather, towards a re-examination, of theories of property; and analysis always made in the truest light. Any work that may assist to a spread of the truth in this matter of cardinal moment must be welcomed. Such a work is Fr. Paschal Larkin's accomplished treatise.*

* * * * *

In this work, a thesis approved for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of London, its author treats of the theory of property as it operated in three countries during the eighteenth century, and centres his work around a study of John Locke, Or, rather, around the influence of the "Essay Concerning the True, Original Extent and End of Civil Government" in its relation to the theory of property. Perhaps it is not quite adequate to say that the distinguished Capuchin thus centres his work, for he "looks before and after'' Locke, the weaknesses of whose influential theory he discovers to the reader, and there is more than a suggestion that lie pines for "what is not" in relation to the justice of the subject. Locke's theory, accepted or rejected as it may be, and definite enough as it was, has been used to prove many things. In the different schools of thought arising out of the development in the social and economic structure since Locke's day there is endless variety. And there is endless variety in the uses to which these schools have put Locke's doctrine. As Professor J. L. Stocks says in an illuminating preface to the book:

 . . . the theory is available for all parties. One will jump at the absolute guarantee .of property which seems to be inserted in the very definition of the State; another, seeing how Nature is said to give a man property in the product of his labour, condemns the society in which he lives for refusing this natural right; while a third, taking "estate" as the external condition of "life" and "liberty," sees a blow struck at State-absolutism, and rejoiced in the cause of freedom.

 Thus the capitalist apologist applies Locke in one way, the communist in another, especially in that part of Locke's complementary theory of man's natural right to that "he hath mixed his labour with." It is this that Marx had in mind when he formulated his untenable "Theory of Values."

* * *

 Locke's claim is that the right of private property is not dependent upon the will of the State. He rejected wholly Hobbes' doctrine, as propounded in ”The Leviathan," that all elements of private ownership, all rights of property, flow from the State; that they are a concession by the civil authority. He was right. He did not, however, accept St. Thomas Aquinas' view that, "the temporal goods which God commits to a man are his indeed in regard to property, but in regard to use, they are not his alone, but belong to others also, who can be sustained by what is superfluous for him." Fr. Paschal says that Locke's views were less individualistic than is commonly supposed, and many writers in the past have neglected the human and democratic elements in his theory. 

But he adds that Locke's

 main object was to insist on the individual's right to his property, as against the arbitrary, interference of the State; and, possibly, that prevented him from recognising more explicitly than he does that private property is a social function as well as an individual right. He nowhere puts the responsibility which should accompany ownership on the same plane as the right to private property itself. He does not. like some previous writers, distinguish between the right to property in general and the right to specific pieces or forms of property. One might almost say that he tends to confuse the fact of private property with the right to private property. This weakness in his theory of property appears to be directly due to the subjective character of his ethical philosophy, or to his lack of faith in social ideals.

 Right throughout his book, poised and impartially reasoned as it is, Fr. Paschal makes clear what that 'ethical philosophy" in relation to his subject should be.

* * * *

 When the colonists in what is now the United States broke with England, the landowners, whose ideas of freedom did not carry the logic of applying it in the matter of personal possessions, interpreted Locke in similar fashion to that in which he was applied in England. The rights of property were by them "glorified" as greatly as they were by the landowners and the wealthy in Britain. At the Virginia Convention in 1776, those with "a stake in the country" were prompt to assert that "all men having a permanent interest in the community"

 cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for publick uses, without their own consent or that of their representatives.

 Locke's philosophy, as Fr. Paschal shows, had no little to do with the economic views of leaders of the American Revolution.

* * * *

 In a brilliant chapter, "The French Contrast," Fr. Paschal shows that, while the French peasantry were the chattels of the monarch and the nobility, the Church's teaching of the succour of the poor was not forgotten, if not always acted upon. In France the view that interest was unlawful was not accepted generally until long after it had been accepted in England. In France there were restrictions associated with the connection of the many with the land. It was not so in England. Locke's individualism there prevailed; the "established classes" were safeguarded in their ownership of land and other property even against the King. But the Church, not always as boldly as it might, asserted the rights of the commonalty of France. "But, while denying that the right of private property was a mere social convention, the Church continued to emphasise the social character of .wealth, the right of the poor to succour from the rich, and the unlawfulness of excessive wealth accumulation." Later, the Code Napoleon confirmed the peasants of France in the possession of their holdings; and that peasantry is one of the main strengths of France to-day. 

* * * *

 In the twentieth century, because of  movements in the eighteenth and the succeeding century, it would appear that "property was made to govern natural rights, rather than natural rights to govern property." This has led to the present condition of society in all supposed civilised lands, where, because of the prevalence of false principles applied to property, something approaching chaos has arisen. Our industrial system and our social order, because of unrepressed individualistic tendencies, gives us to-day "a world groaning under burdens of its own making, and unable to find a method of dislodging them. Those of little property have been absorbed by those with greater possessions, and the unpropertied masses number more and more, while the thousand and one dreadful accompaniments of the soulless business intensify hourly. This, is because property has not been used in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church. Even in this favoured country we witness' the spectacle of people in want and poverty, and that in the face of plenty. Says Fr. Paschal:

 Every right-minded person must admit that if property due to personal effort and initiative is a progressive and stabilising influence in society, property divorced from labour, and labour which remains merely potential property, tend to be subversive of national, as they sometimes are of individual and family, life.

 This is dispassionately phrased, but its meaning is evident. That meaning touches the general sociological problem to-day. 

* * * * 

 Too much praise cannot be given to Fr. Paschal for the easy readability of his work. It is written in a clear, nervous English, with a most felicitous style, from which even the luminous epigram is not absent. "The dismal science" -in his pages is anything but dismal. His meaning is always as clear as noonday.. But it is the substance of the work which is most important. The formidable bibliography which Fr. Paschal publishes at the end of his book shows how thorough has been his search for light on this difficult subject. This is an important work, which, supplying a need, cannot be too highly valued. The book is splendidly printed and produced and its reference and footnotes are admirably complete.

"Throughout this modern period there has been a predominant tendency to conceive property in terms of a theory which early found its classic expression in a short chapter of John Locke's Essay. . . Of this doctrine a careful account will be found in the following pages, marked by an evident desire to do justice to a great thinker. Locke remains the child of his time, and from such a study as this we come to understand him better by seeing him in this light. …

 "We are now in a position to do justice to the eighteenth century. The historian in every reader is anxious to do it justice, and welcomes a careful study of facts and tendencies, like the present, as an effort in this direction. But, as a citizen, the reader will also expect from it, in accordance with an ancient tradition, some enlightenment in regard to the problems of his own day; and he will not be disappointed." —Extract from the Preface, written by Prof. J. L. Stocks.

—P. I. O'L

*"Property In the Eighteenth Century." By the Rev. Paschal Larkin. O.S.F.C., M.A., Ph.D. With a preface by Professor J.L. Stocks. Cork University Press.

Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 5 February 1931, page 3

THE LABOR MOVEMENT.

and TOM MANN AT THE TEMPERANCE HALL.

Continuing his Sunday lecture, as partially reported in the Tasmanian News yesterday. Mr Tom Mann said⎼

AMOS AS AGITATOR.

 Have any of you ever read of a Labor agitator who lived about 750 B.C.? There were a number of them; but I refer to one in particular. We have a little record of  what he did and said. We know that he was a fruit-gatherer, working  for a living. But he was also a student of the social problems of time. He lived at Tekos. I refer to the prophet Amos. Don't be alarmed because I call him a Labor agitator; when you have heard me, you will come to the same conclusion. He was a workman and a student of social and industrial development, as they had it then. He made his way to the capital, and held various meetings denouncing the behavior of the wealthy of the time, declaring that the poverty of the people was a crying sin against Jehovah—said that there were people then directly responsible for that poverty— said that Jehovah's people ought to be well, and happy, and contented, and living in accordance with the divine justice and idea. " But," said he, " here you are, exploiting these people for the results of their labor." I'll give you his own language, spoken in the name of Jehovah ; "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies."  Why? Listen ! " Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat; ye have built yourselves houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards: but ye shall not drink wine of them." Then comes the condemnation as to the burnt offerings. Now, will you first remember that these offerings were stipulated for in the old Jewish ritual ? He points out the particular cause which makes the offerings unacceptable. They trod on the poor; they took burdens of wheat from them. You see, he is not talking to the poor ; not theirs the condemnation. It was a pastoral and agricultural country, and the crops were produced by the labor of the poor. The foodstuffs created the wealth, and only a section of the results of the labor of the poor, and still pretended to serve God. This is why they received condemnation. The condemnation of Amos, in the name of God, was against these wealthy Jews because they took from the poorer, the working Jews, the results of their labor, living on the fat of the land at their expense, doing little or no work themselves. But all the time they attended the fashionable place of worship on the Sabbath, and pretended to serve the Deity in a wonderfully nice fashion. That is why they were condemned. This was 750 years before Christ; but the Gentiles of our modern civilisation are outdoing the Jews altogether in the matter of exploitation of labor—doing more than the Jews of that time even knew how to do. (Applause.) And yet, you have your churches to-day, your politicians to-day, your social reformers (of a mild type) to-day. You have your newspapers, as they had theirs— in a very primitive form. But the system that Amos condemned still exists; and in our churches we hear these condemnations read, we acquiesce in them; we say that it was quite right that the old Jews should be condemned for doing what was wrong. True, we are not particularly clear as to what it was they did ; but we are absolutely sure that no such wrongdoing goes on now. It does go on, none the less, in a more intensified form. There they kept the poor poor ; we literally destroy them. Here in our modern civilisation their very lives threatened, and the weeping and wailing of women and children goes up from every populous centre of the world. And yet we are acquiescing in the system that exists. I tell you : these connected with the Labor Movement would be ashamed to have so paltry a religion as that which is advocated from the pulpit of the average church ! (Loud applause). 

AS TO MONOPOLY.

I am not condemning religion, but the absence of religion. The pretence goes up from the ordinary citizen also that all is right; in any case, that there is little to grumble about. If this were not so, some degree of activity would be manifested in the old and newer countries with a view to rectifying the terrible evils that exist. Look at the awful monopolies at Home ! I have called attention to America in passing; but look at the monopolists in Britain ! They get hold of the lands. Here, perhaps, they don't— (Oh, oh, and laughter); but in the Old Country they have the land, and that land is made increasingly valuable in every one of the districts where people live and work. You know what that results in : the result of the added value of that land. The landholder or owner having the law to protect him, and the military and naval forces to put into operation to back the law, if need be, is secured against the people. That is to say if he should have any difficulty in getting that which he desires to obtain by ordinary means, then the Law says it is his, and if he still cannot get it, the Law orders that the military and naval forces shall be there to mow down the mob that dares to resist his obtaining what he calls his. These are facts I’m talking. (Applause.) By this means, in Britain alone, the landlords are receiving over £230,000,000 per annum, for they do not work. They take it from the people who do work, and by their work create the value of the land. (Hear hear ) The ground-rents alone that the landlords of London are receiving amount to £16,500,000 per annum. That is from the City of London alone⏤rent for the sites only : which site, have been made valuable by the men who have worked and the men who are now living and working there. Many of these people, who are poverty-stricken, and never get enough food, must pay increased rents to landlords who have never done anything to produce the value of the land or make it suitable for habitation. Taking the country right through for urban and agricultural land, over £230,000,000 goes to the landlords, without any effort being put forth to earn it or produce value on their part.

 PLUTOCRACY AND POVERTY

But the landlords are not the only ones who obtain wealth without working for it. We have the wealthy plutocracy connected with industrial matters, who receive interest on investments and profits on trade. After allowing for any work that these plutocrat perform, for a fair remuneration for the work they do, and looking at them only from that side on which they are exploiting the people, we find, in  the form  of interest and profit, apart from rent, that another £500,000,000 per annum is taken from the people who create the value in the British Isles. Here, sir, we have the solution of the problem of poverty in Britain. The people are producing by their labor over £700,000,000 per annum. I am not including in that the sum derived as interest or profit from foreign and colonial investments ; which makes £100,000000 more.

ENGLAND'S CHRISTIANITY. 

Now let us see what this brings us to. England is said to be a Christian country; and some of you, I know, would declare that it is. Is it? It may be nominally; and if Christianity approves of the exploitation of poor—if Christianity condones ar approves the encouragement of one section to live by legalised robbery, at the expense of these who do the work—it is a Christian country, undoubtedly, But if Christianity means the putting into practice the principles of Jesus Christ which are diametrically opposed to robbery in any form, then England is far from being the country of a Christian nation. For our wealthy people—wealthy politicians, statesmen, knights of industry, and those who keep away from industrial pursuits altogether—are exploiting and enslaving the workers in a manner that no man in any country of the older world knew how to do or had the opportunity of doing. (Applause.) As a labor man I could not be identified with such flimsy theology as they are identified with. (Applause.) I could not ; because I say that by their proceedings they are creating a social Hell, and are throwing the people into that Hell by the hundreds of thousands (Renewed applause.) My object is not now to denounce these people, but only to inferentially refer to them, in order to indicate the attitude they occupy.

THE LABOR PROPAGANDA.

 The Labor Movement calls on those seriously concerned to lose no time in getting to work to rectify the conditions that exist. (Hear, hear.) Nothing short of a complete change in the industrial bases of society will serve—carrying with it the clearing out of the landed aristocracy and the capitalist plutocracy, and the restoration to the people of that which God gave for everybody, and not for a mere handful, (Applause.) If this strikes you as extreme, I am perfectly willing that it should be extreme. It is not more extreme than what we have been advocating during a long period now, and what is accepted by a large proportion of the workers of Europe. If you should be surprised at this, permit me to say that the thoughtful men and women of the various countries of Europe—including well-educated Germany, and France, and Belgium, and Holland, and Sweden, and Denmark, and Norway, and, to a less but increasing extent, Spain and Italy—are arriving at the same conclusion. There, as well as in Britain, these problems are up for consideration. What is more— and this will weigh with you—young America, which was till yesterday solely and essentially individualistic, in the sense of every man for his own hand and the devil take every other, is coming to the same position.

 CHANGE IN AMERICA.

The attitude of America until recently was individualistic: each man for himself: get on ! get on!—never mind who gets off ! This was the dominant characteristic of the American; but it is less so to-day, and it is less so in proportion as there have been careful students of these social and industrial problems. They have come to the conclusion that the discord that exists directly arises, not from the niggardliness of nature or the unkindness of the Deity, but because of the lack of wiser arrangement among human beings. (Applause.) They are resolving to leave undone that may be necessary in applying such principles as shall result in the complete change of our present individualistic, capitalist, competitive system of industry to a democratic, practical co-operative system, in the interests of everybody. What we have in view is nothing more than that. The cure of existing evils is to be found in the change from capitalistic competition to genuinely fair co-operation, to cover all the ramifications of industry ; but that will mean putting a stop to legalised robbery by rent-receiving, interest-receiving, profit-receiving. It will mean the recognition that the land is for the people, and not for a handful—the land of England, of Ireland, of Wales, of Scotland, and so with the land of all countries. (Applause.)

"STRIKE-LEADER, MOSES." 

Let us look at another strike leader, Moses. He'd his colleague, Aaron, too. One did the agitating and one led. Moses stipulated certain conditions. He had thought the subject out well. He laid it down that no man should be called on to work more than six days in any one week; and further, that after working well for six years, the whole crowd should have a good year's holiday. He said, "Give good attention to the land, and you'll find it will grow enough. In the six years you will have brought it into a good state, and you will get sufficient to cover you for the year you don't work, and seed for the next." You may doubt that as much as you like. I believe it was so. I believe Moses knew a good deal when it was so arranged. He knew it was a good thing to give the land and the people a chance. But Moses knew something more than you do. He said, " The land shall not be sold for ever. Every fifty years we shall have a good old jubilee, and the whole crowd shall have a rattling good time." Some of you don't believe this ever took place : or if you do, you don't think it could be imitated now. Well, it comes down to this: that the average working representative of mining in Tasmania is called to work fifty-two weeks in the year, and seven days a week at that. It is not an advance on the time before they had machinery. Then a man had to work eight hours a day six days a week, in order to maintain his family up to the standard of health. That was the system five hundred years ago. I refer you as to that to Professor Thorold Rogers's book, " Six Centuries of Work and Wages." You will find in there in detail: the actual conditions they worked under, the value they created, what they received, and the standard of life made possible to them. But even this is inferior to what Moses stipulated for, where the tools were yet more primitive for land that would yield well ; but we have no reason to believe that it would yield better than Tasmania. You will see then, that in spite of making social and industrial progress, you are only making progress for a few exploiters who are taking the results of your labor. Moses also said, " You shan't take usury from your brother." But the Englishman doesn't see it that way—nor the Irishman, Welshman, Scotchman, or Tassie, (Laughter).

Tasmanian News (Hobart, Tas. : 1883 - 1911), Tuesday 20 January 1903, page 2

JAPAN AS A MORAL POWER.

 (By "Student.")

"How patient we were during the protracted and tedious negotiations with Russia all the world knows. The war is not the result of any racial hatred, or of the spirit of revenge, or of aggressive designs. Having been forced upon us, not sought by us, it is purely defensive. When the war is concluded the whole world will be surprised to see, as after the war with China, that not a trace of enmity or any ill-feeling exists towards our temporary enemy. Not even towards the Russians shall we cease to possess the feeling of amity, which comes from confidence in our own strength, and from the fact that through 2,500 years of our history we have never known a defeat; and as in the past, so in the future, it will be our sole guide in our efforts to attain a high stage of Western civilisation!" (Count Okuma, "The New Japan, in "The Monthly Review," Aug., 1904.)

As to the killing of the Portuguese missionaries, he says: "Although the object of the pioneer of the mission, St. Francis Xavier, was to preach the gospel of Christ, that of those who followed him was by no means to spread the doctrine of Christianity, but to absorb our country by a series of most treacherous intrigues. However well disposed we were towards them at first, however willing we were to listen to things consonant to nature and reason, we could not tolerate that foreign intriguers should appropriate even an inch of our territory, and hence the wholesale massacre and expulsion."

He further says : "Had the Portuguese missionaries confined their energy to religious enterprises only, Japan would easily have been transformed into a Christian country, with a sect of her own for a few years' exertion by Xavier and his followers succeeded in making more than a million converts, including several of the feudal lords and their retainers a most wonderful achievement when we take into consideration the population of the country in those days." "But the pioneers of the Portuguese mission had not only absolute immunity from persecution or interference, but their religion was eagerly taken up by every class of the population and he quotes Xavier's own words in a letter to the Christian Society at Goa to the effect that the Japanese people "surpasses in goodness any of the nations ever discovered. They are of a kindly disposition, wonderfully desirous of honour, which is placed above everything else. They listen with great avidity to discourse about God and divine things."

There is another article entitled "How Japan reformed herself," by O. Eltzbacrer, in the "Nineteenth Century" for July, 1906.

The Japanese were a "politically highly organised, well-ordered, and therefore a highly cultured people centuries before the time of Alexander the Great." The first census was taken in 86 B.C., and in 645 the Emperor ordered that it should be taken every six years, whereas the first census of Great Britain was taken only in 1861. The first postal service was established in the year 202. In the 7th and 8th centuries was organised the administrative system of the country, and Prince Shotoku created that spirit of Japan which combines absolute fearless-ness, patriotism, and the keenest sense of personal honour and unselfishness, unfailing courtesy, gentleness, and obedience to authority." The following are the rules laid down by the Prince during a time of disorder, and are still religiously observed:—

Concord and harmony, obedience to established principles. Disputes to be settled by arbitration.

Respect for authority.
Courtesy.

The evil to be punished, and the good rewarded. Sycophancy and dishonesty condemned.

Faith, mutual confidence between Sovereign and subject.

"Anger should be curbed, and wrath cast away. The faults of another should not cause for resentment."

To chide a fault does not prevent its repetition, nor can the censor himself be secure from error. The sure road to success is that trodden by the people in unison."

"Those in authority should never harbour hatred or jealousy of one another. Hate begets hate, and jealousy is blind."

"The imperative duty of man in his capacity of a subject is to sacrifice his private interest to the public good. Egotism forbids co-operation, and without co-operation there cannot be any great achievement."

This was written about 600 A.D., and has been taught continuously from that time. Japan, we are told, "is the only country in the world where, regardless of birth, wealth, and connections, all careers and the very highest offices in the land are open to all comers."

Japan was always ready "to learn from the foreigners all that could be learned, and to adapt, but not slavishly to copy, all that could benefit and elevate the nation."

A long period of peace had made the military class—the Samurai—neglect their training, and there was a want of unity among the people when, in 1853, the American Commodore Perry forced the Japanese to open their ports to foreigners. This roused the latent patriotism of the people, and induced the Shogun— the practical ruler—to resign his office, and place it in the hands of the Mikado, who established a liberal and constitutional government, using his added power, not for his own pleasure or profit, but for the good of his country.

And then followed one of the most extraordinary perhaps the most extraordinary acts of self-effacement and patriotism ever recorded. The nobles resolved to restore the territories which they had received from the Emperor; to abandon their titles and, under a humbler name, to receive such small properties as may suffice for their wants;" while "the officers of the class were to abandon that title, call themselves officers of the Emperor, receiving the property equal to that which they had theretofore held." Thus feudalism, which had existed in Japan for over eight centuries, voluntarily extinguished itself, and patriotism triumphed over selfish interests and the love of power."

"A feverish desire to sacrifice themselves for their country, a desire which is deeply implanted in all Japanese, took hold of the whole population, and when it was recognised that the enormous caste of Samurai, the warriors, who cost the country about £2,000,000 per annum, had no room in the modern State, patriotism found again the remedy. The army of professional soldiers, who had been taught that the sword was their sole means of earning a living, and who disdained to earn their bread by industry or trade, quietly effaced themselves, surrendered the larger part of their incomes, and, without a murmur, accepted inglorious poverty in the shape of pensions, which amounted to but a few pence per day, and which barely kept the men from starvation."

The article concludes with these words: "The individualistic nations of the West, in which the interests of the nation are only too often sacrificed to the selfish interests of the individual, where party loyalty is apt to take precedence over patriotism, where ministers, generals, and admirals are rarely appointed by merit only, where jobbery occurs even in time of war, and where everything is considered permitted that is not actually punished by law, will do well to learn from Japan's example, for it cannot be doubted that the cause of Japan's greatness and of Japan's success can be summed up in the one word —patriotism."

 The Japanese have a system of morals called Bushido, meaning, as we are told, literally "Military-knight-ways," being an unwritten code originally observed by the Samurai, or knightly class, and thence permeating the lower strata. Of this system an account is given by Mr. Inazo Nitobe.

The qualities  which are inculcated by Bush-id-o are rectitude or justice; courage, the spirit of daring and bearing (active and passive); benevolence, politeness, truthfulness, honour, loyalty, self-control.

I know of no code of merely secular morals more noble than this; and its result is shown in these words of the author:-" 'Is there any other more loyal and patriotic?' to a question asked by many; and for the proud answer: 'There is not,' we must thank the precepts of knighthood."

It is true, as the author says, that these high principles are often not carried out by the trading class, but he accounts for this, or at least explains it, by the fact that this class was looked upon as the lowest of all, and that, therefore, only people of an inferior kind engaged in its pursuits.

The Japanese have the reputation of being kind, gentle, good-humoured, placable, easily moved to mirth. It is said that they have no abusive words in their language. They are obedient to parents and rulers, and thoroughly amenable to discipline. They are trained to endure hardships, and to develop the highest powers of body and mind; they are singularly clean in their habits, live in houses which are always open to the air, and are simple and abstemious in their diet. We see the fruit of this discipline in the marvellous courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice which, as exhibited in the present war, have won the admiration of the whole world. In no age and in no country has there ever been a more splendid display of heroism and patriotism than that of the Japanese soldiers and sailors. This it a grand lesson to all the world. The Japanese have turned to the Western nations, and assimilated whatever they thought would be beneficial to themselves, but in return they have given a noble example of discipline, perfect organisation, fidelity to the death, and utter self-immolation for their country and their Emperor, which ought to touch a responsive chord in the hearts of every Western people.

It is astonishing how closely the conduct of our brave allies approaches the standard of Christianity. Consider the declaration of forgiveness before quoted, and the kindness and generosity with which they have treated the wounded Russians who have fallen into their hands, and the respect they have shown to their dead foe, and who will venture to deny that the spirit in which they have acted is eminently Christian? And there is reason to believe that before long they will accept the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, for we are told that Christianity is making rapid progress in Japan, and that many of its prominent men have adopted it.

There is so much that is Christian in the conduct and sentiments of the Japanese people that if they should embrace the religion their character would probably approach nearer to the ideal set forth in the New Testament than that of any nation on the face of the globe.

Some years ago they were in doubt what religion to adopt, and appointed a committee to inquire into the subject. The committee reported that, theoretically, the Christian religion was the best; but, considering how little effect it had on the lives and conduct of its professors, they recommended that their people should keep to their own religion. If the Western nations had set a better example, Japan long before, this would have accepted the faith of Christianity.

Ex oriente lux— light comes from the East. The sun, with his brightness and life-giving power, rises in the East, and thence also came forth the Sun of Righteousness; thence also came the knowledge of letters. The East had a high state of civilisation while the West was in a condition of barbarism; and it seems not unlikely that the West is destined again to receive further benefits from an Eastern source, for the example of all the manly virtues set by our brave allies can hardly fail to excite the emulation and elevate the moral standard of our own country-men. They will have to throw off their easy habits, and exert all their powers if they are not to be left behind in the race with their active and thoroughly-in-earnest competitors. If Japan should embrace Christianity as the national religion (which is increasingly probable) the one thing now lacking to complete its progress, and to make it one of the greatest moral forces in the world will have been supplied. If its system of morals already contains so large a part of practical Christianity, so much that is excellent, and if the conduct of the people under that system has been so admirable, to what height may we not expect that it will attain when the love of God to us and our duty to him is added to the precepts of Japanese chivalry?

When we compare our own practice with that of the non-Christian Japanese —our worship of amusement, of money, our lax performance of duty, the frequent complaint that our military officers, instead of giving their whole minds to their professional studies, too often try all they can to shirk them, and only consider them a bore; when we think of our dishonesty in trade, our adulterations, the little value we attach to the spoken word and refusal to abide by it unless legalised in writing, the want of reverence for parents and respect for authority, the bitter antagonism on the part of the employed towards their employers, and their desire to gain everything for themselves, and to give the least possible in exchange, utterly ignoring the fact that they have a duty to the masters as well as the masters to them; when we see the increasing laxity in the relations of the sexes; when our novels are filled with stories of illicit love (so called), often written by women; when the only aim of society people seems to be who can devote the greatest folly, and spend most money in the most idiotic ways; when, instead of striving to be content with little, our people are multiplying luxuries; when their only notion of "raising the standard of living" is that of increasing the supply of material things; when they live only for self, and for perishable enjoyments, when there is a general tendency towards materialism, and all earnestness and enthusiasm are discouraged as being "bad form", when we see all these and many other signs of decadence in our country, we cannot shut out the fear that the grand old land of our fathers may have started on a downward course, and the thought suggests itself whether Japan, when Christianised with its higher standard of duty, may not be destined to take the first place among the nations in regard to moral qualities

An article on "The Revelation of the East" in the "Contemporary Review" for August, 1904, speaking of Japan, says that "During age-long outward stagnation qualities of racial character, have been inwardly produced, which are fit to survive the shock of contact with novelty and progress, fit also to contribute as well as to receive in a new distribution of mental and moral wealth among the nations, and to be an effective factor in a new adjustment of national characters and functions and relations. The chief note of the new day, " he says, "is this of the nation of the Rising Sun, the intensification of national consciousness to the absorption of private interest, the effective control of individualism by a heightened patriotism. The rudiments of this new consciousness of the citizen have been present throughout all past history, its completion and efficiency must be a dominant factor in the age now seen in its beginning."

Japan has learnt many things of a material kind from the Western nations, but there are many others, of an immaterial kind, which she can teach them, and which, if they are wise, they will receive and procure.

When we see how far the Japanese have advanced in the practice of many of the Christian virtues, and how far we fall short of their standard, we ought to hide our heads in shame, and resolve, by God's grace, so to live that we may not bring discredit on the religion we profess, but rather show to those who have not known it an example of what Christianity in its purity is capable of being. If we are to commend our religion to other men, it must be by carrying it out in our lives, not by merely preaching its doctrines. It is wise to know the truth, but it is better still to live it.

It is a sad, but a true, confession to make, that to a large extent the so-called Christians are the real heathen, while sometimes, as in the case of the Japanese, those who are accounted heathen by the self-righteous Pharisee show more of Christianity in their practice than he with all his confidence that he is "a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness "

There are three things that have made Japan what she is, and which we ought to learn from her : —1. Intensity, which is impressed upon us by Solomon in the well-known precept, "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might"— throw your whole soul into it. 2. Thoroughness, shown by the Japanese in the perfection of their arrangements, and (3) self-control, leading to the subordination of the feelings and desires to the claims of duty, and the promptings of the higher nature.

These things Japan has taught us by her example. Happy for us and our nation if we take the lesson to heart ere it be too late.

Mercury (Hobart, Tas. 1905,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12287466

LIBERTY AND LIBERALISM:

  A protest against the growing tendency towards undue interference by the State with individual liberty, private enterprise, and the rights of property.
—By Bruce Smith : George Robertson and Co., Melbourne and Sydney.
 
The struggle between the rival principles of laissez faire and governmental interference is being waged with growing earnestness by writers and speakers of the highest intellectual rank. It covers, indeed, nearly the whole field of party controversy on questions of substantive legislation. Its relation to current questions is seen in the tendency to recognise the State's obligation to inspect mines and dwellings; to secure to the people the fruit of their Labor and the safe investment of their savings ; to educate them, and to protect them in their employment from outside competition. Few departments of life indeed are free from the operation of State interference, and the question is whether its indefinite extension is a thing to be desired or discouraged. That its inevitable consequence is the subordination of individual liberty to collective dictation is not denied by its advocates. They attribute social imperfections to defective institutions, and their proposals for remedial legislation proceed on the assumption that the individual should suffer inconvenience, or even deprivation, if that is inseparable from the removal of the more severe forms of poverty and discontent. The current doctrines of Socialism and Communism have a fascination for thinkers who are not dreamy enthusiasts ; for though Ruskin, who has avowed in other words the possibility of substituting for the actual world a millenial Utopia, and Matthew Arnold, who has waged a crusade against the "Philistines" or middle class, and denounced the aristocracy as barbaric, may not on this subject be taken seriously, no charge of visionary partisanship can be brought against Mr. Froude, who has openly sneered at the doctrine of laissez faire, and announced that by all sensible men it has been abandoned. Laissez faire has been defined as " personal freedom tempered only by the enforcement against every man of respect for the rights of others." It is a denial of the belief that legislative wisdom can remove all the ills of humanity ; but those who, like Mr. Bruce Smith in the book before us, protest against "undue" interference by the State, have not always an easy task in defining the meaning of the qualification. That the State, for instance, should prevent the employment of unseaworthy vessels, and should punish negligence which endangers the lives of sailors, is now acknowledged by all as a duty, though a few years ago a proposition that the State should resume this power was regarded as an assault upon the sacred rights of property, in the schemes for the better housing of the poor formulated to-day by Conservatives may be witnessed another illustration of the general recognition of the State's right to interfere up to a certain point in the relations between classes.   At what stage shall that right cease ? If landlords may be justly compelled at their own loss to demolish unhealthy dwellings and substitute tenements where the poor may be comfortably housed, why may not the State go farther and correct other inequalities which private liberty has permitted if not caused? Sometimes, as in the instance of the Irish Land Act—the most gigantic invasion of the principle of laissez faire in recent times —Government interference may be invoked as a Deus ex machina to solve some difficulty of which it is imperative that the State should get rid. It is the business of the advocates of laissez faire to show that the State cannot assume the paternal functions with which Socialists would invest it without evils resulting, for which the actual benefits would not compensate.

 Mr. Smith in his somewhat bulky volume sets himself to the task of demonstrating the injurious effects which the interference of the State in the relations between the various classes have upon personal freedom. He parades the opinions of a host of authorities to show that every additional transfer of duties to the State from the shoulders of individuals saps the belief in the value of " natural liberty." Abstract principles and the teaching of experience are, he contends, rejected in favor of expedients which promise immediate relief. Habits of self-reliance are submerged by an infinite series of calls upon the State to arbitrate between one section of the community and another— to hold the balance, to fix a standard for bargains, to provide roles for the conduct of business.  Mr. Smith naturally enough from his point of view illustrates the tendency of paternal or philanthropic legislation by a reference to the results of the English poor law of fifty years ago, but the repeal of that measure was not brought about by any sentimental objection to State interference with labor, but because it was proved that the laborers who should theoretically have been benefited were actually pauperised. Mr. Smith will have the sympathy of few observant readers when he affects to treat politics as a fixed science. The absurdity of a political economy which can for the convenience of theorists be summarily transplanted to Jupiter, or Saturn has long been recognised by practical statesmen not only in Great Britain but abroad. The English Factory Acts are frequently quoted as examples of what the State may legitimately do for those among the poor who are unable to take due care of their own interests. Those Acts, among other beneficial changes prohibited people working in factories from taking their meals in the room where they were employed lest their food should be rendered hurtful by the poisonous effects of their trade. They were compelled to take these and other precautions whether they cared to do so or not. Statesmen who propose legislation for the benefit of the laboring poor are driven by their own principles to admit that the labor market cannot, as Mr. Smith contends, be left to regulate itself. In foreign countries the obligation of the State to interfere for the protection of its poorer subjects is still more widely recognised. In Germany, for instance, Prince Bismarck's scheme of State socialism is a distinct contradiction of the doctrine of laissez faire. Working men are there compelled by a system of insurance to protect themselves against the miseries of sickness and the effects of poverty at a time when they are past work. It is all very well to ridicule the modern enthusiasm of humanity, but few statesmen nowadays allow themselves to be impeded in action by a rigid adherence to any political formulary. There are undoubtedly wise thinkers—Herbert Spencer among the number—who constantly dwell upon the evils they believe to be inseparable from the growing desire for legislative change. In theory Spencer admits that the recognition of the executive as the all wise and benevolent agent of the community answers well enough. The practical evils he ascribes to it are the weakening of individual responsibility, and the drain upon the national resources entailed by an official system of control. John Stuart Mill, whom Mr. Smith does not forget to quote, shares the misgiving with which Herbert Spencer looks upon the probable future when the regulation of the most minute affairs of our daily life will be in the hands of a Parliamentary majority "as ready as any organs of oligarchy to assume arbitrary power and encroach unduly upon private liberty." Against all this talk of legislative tyranny we have the testimony of Buckle, Froude, and many other historians, that a nation which does not respond to the demands of the great bulk of its members must fall back in greatness as compared with other nations—it cannot stand still. The Mahometans dislike change, so do the Chinese. But both are moving with the times. Human society is in a constant state of development, and as political economy is not an exact science it follows that legislation must adapt itself to the requirements of the time and country to which it is applied.  Mr. Smith is compelled to admit that limitations to his creed of laissez faire are not unnecessary. He acknowledges the soundness of the argument advanced by Mr. Stanley Jevons that "the State is justified in passing any law or even in doing any single act which, without ulterior consequences, adds to the sum total of happiness. Good done is sufficient justification of any act in the absence of evidence that equal or greater evil will subsequently follow." In other words, expediency is to be the test of legislation. Mr. Smith, however, contends that some limit should be placed upon the right of the State to interfere in the correction of social inequalities, but where is the line to be drawn ? Mr. Smith admits the difficulty of giving any precise reply when he quotes the statement of M. Leon Say, that "the proper limit of State action cannot be laid down in the same way as a boundary line on a map, because it is a boundary which alters in accordance with the times and the political, economical, and moral condition of the people." A scientific definition of State duties being impossible we must be content to be guided in our legislation by certain broad principles; and these as laid down by Mr. Smith would prevent the State from imposing taxes, using public revenue, or interfering with legally acquired property unless the owner should be fully compensated, or in any way restricting personal liberty "for any other purpose than that of securing equal freedom to all." But will regulations of this kind really help the cause of laissez faire ? The justice of taxation for the relief of severe distress is recognised in the policy of most countries, yet what is this but the spoliation, however justifiable, of one class for the benefit of another ? And as regards "legally acquired property " a definition is wanted as to what constitutes the right to ownership. Henry George, for instance, has declined to regard the possession of land as being valid in the same sense as the possession of movable property. Less drastic innovators profess to see in their schemes the mere recognition of the principle of retaliation; and before agreeing to exempt "legally-acquired property" from interference they would want to know how such property came to be acquired, and the nature of the return made to the State. Might it not in some cases be found—such innovators would say—that the original title to land constituted as great an interference by the State as its forfeiture would now ?  The truth is that the difference between the advocates of laissez faire and their opponents is merely one of degree. They concur in the wisdom of meeting particular evils by special enactments, though they may concede that their enactments are not entirely logical. The State may invest the people's savings for them, but according to the school to which Mr. Bruce Smith belongs it must not compel them as in Germany to make provision for future necessities out of their wages; it may educate them and so prevent them from turning thieves and vagabonds, but it must not by regulation of commerce keep them in employment; it may prohibit injurious practices in factories but it may not shorten the hours of labor. And as in other departments of life the State may violate consistency where the object is the encouragement of industry or the production of happiness. That incidental dangers are inseparable from capricious interference by the State is inevitable, but that they are as serious or frequent as Mr. Smith imagines we may safely doubt. Most of his readers will probably disagree with his conclusions, but they will not fail to be struck with his clear and forcible putting of the case for laissez faire, and will be surprised at the extent of the information of which he has made himself master.

The South Australian Advertiser 4 October 1887