EUROPEAN LIBERALISM

 AN ESSAY IN INTERPRETATION BY PROFESSOR LASKI

"The Rise of European Liberalism," by Harold J. Laski. Published by George Allen and Unwin, London.

LIBERTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL

IN the nineteenth century the dominating idea in the political and social thought of the period was the doctrine of the liberty of the individual. Political freedom was sought to be attained by democratic institutions, economic liberty by the restriction of State interference in industry. In general it was considered that not merely was the general welfare best attained by allowing a maximum of freedom of action to individuals, but that individual liberty of action and thought was a value in itself, something to be sought for its own sake. In medieval times no such doctrine prevailed. Authority was the keynote of the period. Freedom of thought and action was strictly controlled by the dogmas of revealed religion and the moral code of Christianity. In modern times the pursuit of economic gain is regarded as an allowable and even praiseworthy end in itself, but in medieval times the economic interest of the individual was subordinated to consideration of the general welfare. Men lived within an economic order in which the effective social institutions, whether church or state or guild, judged economic activity by criteria derived from outside itself. Material utility was not accepted as a valid justification of economic behaviour. Heaven was man's destination, and his activities in this world were controlled accordingly. Hence competition was controlled, commerce was forbidden on religious grounds prices and the rate of interest were fixed, wages and hours were regulated, and speculation was, within wide limits, prohibited. But in the sixteenth century these medieval ideas began to give way to the habit of thought and system of ideas that are known as liberalism, and the question is, why did they do so?

 PENETRATING ANALYSIS.

 IN his essay, Professor Laski seeks to supply an answer to this question. To his task he brings qualifications which are possessed by few if any other writers of the present day. Not only is he an accomplished historian, but he is also a political philosopher with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the political writings of the period under consideration: indeed he almost irritates at times by the copiousness of his familiar allusions to writers of whom most people have never heard. The result is a profound and penetrating analysis of the fundamental ideas of liberalism, and of their relation to the historical evolution of the last four centuries. Professor Laski sees in liberalism an ideology invented to justify the methods and the predominance of the commercial class which gradually came to power in the period following the Renaissance and Reformation. Seeing the opportunities which lay before them to take advantage of the new geographical and technological discoveries, merchants and manufacturers rejected the traditional ideas which would have hampered them in their pursuit of gain, and asserted the right of the individual to free enterprise in the acquisition of wealth. They challenged the right of absolute monarchy to rule independently of their consent, thus evolving the doctrines of political liberty, and they next denied the right of the State, however controlled, to interfere with the economic freedom of the individual in the pursuit of gain, thus laying down the doctrine of laissez faire. In place of a society resting on status they substituted one the basis of which was freedom of contract between individuals. They persuaded themselves further that the freedom of the individual to pursue his own personal gain would promote the general welfare of society.

 THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERALISM.

 THUS Professor Laski sees liberalism as fundamentally a doctrine intended to secure to the middle classes their right to property and their right to pursue individual gain. Its more idealistic exponents did not of course limit its benefits to the middle classes, but Professor Laski lays stress on the fact that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the founders of liberalism refused to extend their theories to cover the working classes in cases where middle class interests might be affected. Thus they energetically rejected the claim of the working classes to participation in the government of the State, and they denied them the right of combination against employers (which alone could give them equality of bargaining power) as being an infringement of the liberty of contract between employer and employee. In the end they were prepared to grant political rights to the working classes, but only on the understanding that rights of property were not to be interfered with — it probably never occurred to them that such rights would be questioned. Now that they are being questioned, Professor Laski notes a disposition on the part of the middle classes to throw overboard their liberal doctrines in favour of Fascism and similar anti-liberal theories. This supports the thesis that liberalism was intended to maintain middle-class interests. 

THE LONELY FURROW OF THE IDEALIST.

 HOWEVER, the thesis is one from which many people will violently dissent. They can point out that John Hampden was not a business man, and that many of the aristocracy fought against Charles I. They can point out that Quesnay, who founded the French school of Physiocrats, who propounded the doctrine of freedom of trade, was not a trader but a court physician. There is no doubt that John Stuart Mill when he wrote of liberty had much more in mind than to make the world safe for capitalists. And so on. But ideas have a habit of being carried further than their origin necessitated, and their extensions are accepted so long as they do not conflict too strongly with their essential basis. The notion of individual liberty is one which may well arouse the enthusiasm of a John Stuart Mill, and economic liberalism had practical advantages and triumphs which might easily persuade a man of its value even though he was not engaged in commerce himself. But theories do not gain general acceptance unless they meet the needs of a large and important class, and the idealist will plough a lonely furrow unless his ideas are such that the practical man of affairs can use them to further his own self-interest. An example was given above of how the doctrine of liberalism could be applied to maintain the position of the middle classes against other classes. On the whole Professor Laski's view would seem to be incontrovertible, and his essay constitutes a masterly analysis of the basis of the dominating political thought of the last four centuries.

W.N.H.

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.), 29 July 1936 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article181911415

"NO CLEAR DIRECTION."

 Professor Laski Discusses Roosevelt.

CONTEMPORARY America is a bewildering spectacle; I returned to England after five weeks with a sense that here, in comparison, were stability of purpose and direction of effort! It is true that the new American Government is the best since the end of the war.

It has courage, it has initiative, and, in an important degrees, it has good will. But one cannot avoid the sense, as one watches it at work, that it is overwhelmed by the complexity of its task; that it has no clear direction in which it is seeking to move; and, not least important, that the stage of evolution the American economic system has reached is unlikely to permit it the luxury of the wholesale economic reconstruction America so patently requires (says Professor Laski in the London "Herald").

What is being decided in America? Essentially, I think, the present phase is the end of the struggle between the little man and the great combination for the control of the sources of productive power. As yet, in a European sense, there is no Labor movement in America; the trade unions, with, but one notable exception, lack any serious political sense of the technique required for the defence of the wage-earning classes.

Political Issues.

The major political issues are, therefore, what they were in Great Britain when Liberals and Conservatives dominated the scene. The policies pursued by the Democrats do not think of issues in terms of the nation's mastery of its life.

They conceive of the achievement of an equilibrium in which the independence of the small owner-merchant, farmer, manufacturer, or what not, is secured.

But this is a futile attempt to arrest a technological evolution in which the small producer is bound to go to the wall. Mr. Roosevelt is seeking to protect him by a policy of regulating capitalism.

At the moment, he has a free hand simply because the Republicans are so discredited. But his effort depends upon a rapid recovery of prosperity. If that does not come, he will lose his hold of Congress at the next election, and, with it, his initiative in legislation.

In that event his last year of office will be barren; and he will hand over to the Republicans—who stand essentially for big business—a highly centralised political machine more apt to the development of industrial feudalism than the world has seen in modern times.

Workers' Outlook.

The American working man will, under those circumstances, be proletarianised under conditions which will make the task of organisation more arduous and more bitter than it has been anywhere since the industrial revolution.

What I felt in America was that the whirlwind of depression had come so quickly that no Government could bridge the gap between the historic psychology of its electorate and the measure required for reconstruction. That is why, I think, the Presidential policy will be regulation, where the facts require socialisation.

Roosevelt Doomed.

That is why I believe that, despite his profound desire to help "the forgotten man," President Roosevelt is doomed to defeat; he is trying to do with the American economic order things its environment does not make possible.

And this is why I come back to England with a profound sense that our outlook is a more hopeful one. For though the experimental temper of Washington is incomparably better than the reactionary do-nothingism of our own Government, here, at least, the lines of division in policy are clear.

The British people have given their Government as wide a mandate for private enterprise as it has ever received; it is terribly and convincingly clear that it has no notion how to make use of it.

The alternative in this country is not, as in the United States, a policy of limited control. The alternative is a clear policy of wide, and rapid socialisation for which the  psychology of the people is being increasingly prepared.

If there is no European catastrophe, if, further, we can count upon respect for constitutional principles, the next years in England ought to give the Labor Party the most creative opportunity in its history.

Compare that situation with the American position. There are 15 million unemployed who with their dependents probably constitute a population greater in number than the whole of our people.

Great schemes must develop, like unemployment insurance, of social welfare, for which the necessary Civil Service will have to be improvised. Control of banking, hours of labor, property-rights, will have to be invented; and these experiments will have to run the gamut of a Supreme Court which is nothing so much as the final defender of economic privilege. That is not all.

States And Federation

The relation of the States to the Federal Government is largely archaic; yet it will be astonishingly difficult to secure its radical amendment. The temper of the people is ardent for change, but it is still set in an overwhelmingly individualist environment. Labor is badly organised and politically unconscious.

 There is no well-developed co-operative movement. The whole social life of America, in a word, is still planned upon the assumption that it is the fabled land of opportunity. And only the actual vision of America can make the observer realise the volume of reconstruction, psychological and institutional, which the new environment requires.

I did not feel that the American Government has either the power or the institutions essential to the task it confronts. It is still, as a Government, largely thinking in terms that the conditions have made obsolete.

It is a "Liberal" Government at a time when the recipe of Liberalism has no applicability to the issues before us.

Inflation?

It may do something by inflation to relieve the terrible pressure of mortgages and debt-interests. It may ease the tariff-barriers which have so woefully handicapped international trade.

It may establish a sounder banking system and offer a greater security to the investor. It may promote schemes of social welfare on the lines of the legislation fostered by the Liberal Government of 1906. But even supposing that it achieves all these things, it will still have left the effective economic power of the community in the hands of the few.

It will still not have been able to plan an America in which there is even an approximation to an equal claim on the common good.

It is no doubt true that the motives of Mr. Roosevelt and his colleagues reveal a far more liberal and creative temper than those of the "National" Government. 

No Organised Workers

But what is lacking in America is a seriously organised and self-conscious working class which sees the problems of power and is prepared to think in those terms. Until that epoch arrives in the United States I find it hard to see how any progressive movement can have behind it the driving force which brings success.

There may be sporadic improvement. There may be well-meant effort to anticipate and stem working-class discontent before it assumes unmanageable proportions. But there will be no decisive attack on the central citadel of power.

In Great Britain it is toward that decisive attack that we are marching. There is no need, Heaven knows, to anticipate that the task will be other than a very difficult one; the British Labor Movement is learning slowly, but, I think, steadily the lessons of 1931.

But at least the character of the alternatives is with us one that is increasingly obvious. To retain the present social order means to retain the present drift and misery and inability to plan in a wholesale way.

A government of the Left in these next years means experiment with the vital foundations of the national life. We have reached a stage in our evolution where that experiment is the alternative to disaster. And it is because a government of the Left may still be the choice of the British people that I find here a prospect of hope not yet discernible on the American horizon.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article185468576

Influence of Patriotism on Modern Philosophy in Italy

 Prof. F. C. Bentivoglio B.A., Member of our Institution, on the invitation by the "Literary Club" of the Sydney University, delivered a lecture on the above subject.

 We are pleased to give hereunder the text of the lecture, as published by the "Corriere."

 Italy is often called the land of sunshine, of music, of art. It could be called also, and quite truthfully, the land of philosophers.

 Two centuries ago, in those few decades preceding the French Revolution, we see in Naples two of the world colossi writing epoch-making books on philosophy: Vico and Filangieri; in Milan, Beccaria. But ere long came the Napoleonic storm. What was thought inviolable, sacred and immortal, proved not to be so. In vain the Holy Alliance in 1815 tried to put back the clock of time, to ignore the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The Encyclopaedists had flooded the world with their books. A new ferment had permeated all Universities, all intellectual centres.

 In Italy the movement for unification had had a powerful impetus from the Napoleonic wars. Sicilians, Neopolitans, Venetians, Lombards, etc., all shed their blood for the greatness of the French Empire. Why not fight for Italy, for one united and independent Italy?

 Italy only a geographical expression. What nonsense, says Vincenzo Gioberti, and he wrote "Il primato degli Italiani," proving the historical and spiritual right of Italy to be at last united.

 Romagnosi, Cattaneo, Ferrari — to quote only the most important philosophers — published book after book on this all-absorbing question.

 Mazzini, the prophet of Italy, had already preached for nearly thirty years in his "La Giovine Italia," a secret organisation whose members were all pledged to work, to fight, and to die, if needed, for the unification of Italy. Excitement was at fever heat in the year 1846, when a former gallant officer, the Count Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, was elected Pope Pius IX., who in a moment of enthusiasm exclaimed: "Great God, bless Italy." The Pope made an alliance with Sardinia and the King of the two Sicilies to fight Austria. But two months later he recalled his army. In fact, Sardinia remained on the field to fight single-handed.

 Patriotic citizens boycotted churches; some even embraced Protestantism. Thousands of priests resigned their office, enlisted, fought and died as brave sons of Italy. Those who survived entered the teaching profession, and through them the passion of patriotism became the daily bread served out to youth, thus permeating all families.

 Garibaldi had collected a battalion of gallant priests in Calabria in his memorable expedition of "The Thousand," and nicknamed the holy battalion.

 Is there any wonder if we see the most intellectual amongst those patriotic priests endeavour to justify their action, not only on historical and national grounds, but by assailing their opponents in their tenets and philosophy? The Church maintained that any national strife was but an incident in its fabric, which she claimed to be immortal. However, the patriots realised that an attack on religion was necessary to obtain the support of the mass. Religion represents the Absolute. The mass can only be stirred into action by the Absolute. Was not the same thing repeated during the Great War?

 Fight, fight on, brave boys; this is the last war. You are not killing your fellow-man; you are killing war. 

Hence an avalanche of books was published trying to prove that Christ never existed. Renan's, Strauss's "Life of Jesus" were in all homes. Biographies of Arnaldo da Brescia, Campanella, Pamponazzi, Giordano Bruno, all killed or burnt at the stake, were presented as prizes to young students. Beautiful monuments to those martyrs were erected in the piazzas.

 * * *

 Carducci, the famous poet, from his chair of Italian Literature at Bologna, inveighed for fifty years against the pious romanticism of Manzoni. Greek and Latin classicisms must be the rock foundation upon which should be built a united Italy.

 Could philosophers refrain from this battle? Here we have Gaetano Trezza, from Verona, a priest, a learned and good man. He attacked St. Thomas, writing most fiercely. He wrote on all topics bearing on the main subject. Also a magnificent Essay on Goethe, just because Faust represents a new conception of life, altogether contrasting with Christian ideals. At the end of an eventful life, the woman he loved died, leaving him alone, absolutely alone. He could not stand the blow. He recanted. The Church re-admitted him into its bosom, and he died Padre Bonvicino, in a cloister. Those mysterious threads which weave the spiritual cloak of our youth seem to weave also our shroud.

 R. Ardigo was born in a peasant home near Cremona in the year 1832. Boy of striking intelligence, he found only one road open to him: Holy Orders. He entered a Seminary in Mantua, and soon was a Doctor in Theology. He saw the hanging of nine Italians in 1851, whose only crime was their love for their country. He witnessed the furious fight between the Church and the patriots, and when forty years of age he declared in a very moving letter to his bishop (a holy man) that he no longer believed. While in the Seminary he was a zealous student of scholastic philosophy and modern science, firmly convinced that the "modern errors," as he called them, were to be refuted. Slowly an entirely new fabric of thought grew up in him, and finally it dawned upon him that he no longer espoused the dualistic teaching of the Church, but believed in a great continuity of things.

 The Minister of Public Education nominated him to the Chair of Philosophy at Padua. Undoubtedly the patriotic environment in which he lived had a great influence on his mental evolution. He was all his life a staunch patriot, and in 1918, when the war seemed lost, still a professor at the University, in a moment of despair he attempted suicide. He lingered on for another two years. He was the foremost writer on positive philosophy, and with his fifty years of teaching he had an overwhelming influence on the philosophical mind of his contemporaries.

 * * * 

G. Negri, a Milanese whose proud intellect would not mix with the populace, for whom he had the greatest contempt, maintained that Italy had made an historical and tragic mistake by wresting Rome from the Pope. He wrote the life of the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, extolling this great man in his vain endeavour to resuscitate the gods and annihilate the Christian religion.

 Yet he, an atheist, shares the view of Livy and Macchiavelli, that religion is essential to a nation. Religious ties for the lower class are like spiritual and intellectual ties for the upper class.

 * * * 

Who does not know Giovanni Papini? A furious internationalist, communist, futurist, at the vanguard of every thought that sounded new, bizarre, impossible. He contributed thousands of writings to newspapers, attacking everything that was or seemed orthodox. He roamed all over the world in search of a new Gospel. Abroad he became enamoured of his own country. His health broke down, he returned to his native Tuscany, he shut himself in a hut, learned Greek and Hebrew, and wrote a "Vita di Cristo" that staggered the world. It is very little critical; it is almost a paraphrase of the four Gospels, and yet it is an extraordinary book. If its literary and philosophical value could be gauged by its sale we should say it is immense. Let it suffice to say that in the first year of its publication three and a half million copies were sold in the U.S.A. alone.

 * * * 

B. Croce, the eminent philosopher, is living on the heights of Naples amongst his books, almost in a monastic retirement. Some of his friends say he gives the cold shoulder to the present regime because Mussolini ignored him.

 "Croce himself," says Gentile, a well-known philosopher, "is a Fascist in spite of himself, who, notwithstanding his Hegelian foundations, he, more than any other single scholar, has revivified the Italian tradition and contributed by his historical researches to the development of Italian Stoicism: that is Fascism. He led a revolt against French and German philosophical systems which had permeated the intellectual lives of all Italian Schools and Universities.

 * * * 

G. Gentile, instead, directly Fascism went into power, was nominated Minister of Public Education. He was the first to tackle the great problem of teaching and making such sweeping changes in all departments as no other person in Italy or anywhere else has dared to make. "To teach well is not to pile up the baggage of bits of information on to the pupil and to impose upon him the result already given and completed by the thought of another, but, above all, to promote the activities of the pupil in the conquest of the scientific truths which are valuable only in so far as they are the results of his own work and represent his own conquest. Hence a syntheist in the person being educated is realised spontaneously every time he really educates himself, that is every time he feels the value of his own person in acquiring a new idea, undergoing a new experience, overcoming a limitation, widening the orbit of the life of his imagination. Our mind has a value not for what it knows materially, but for his capacity to win ever new knowledge. Hence the value of the school consists essentially in its enhancement of the ability to learn." 

* * *

 In the year 1909 died near Forli the philosopher Alfredo Oriani. If we had to judge him by his success in life it would not be worth our while to mention him at all. He wrote books, novels, short stories, poetry, dramas, all dismal failures. He wrote also on sociology. His startling prohecies make us pause and ponder over that singular intellect never understood. In his last book, "la Rivolta Ideale," 1906, he has exalted certain traditional spiritual values, judged Socialism not as creation, but mere criticism. He saw in the ascent of the proletariat not a new revolution approaching, but the birth of a new middle class, and expressed contempt for the cowardly theory which flattered the people by telling them that their inferiority was only due to the injustice of the law. He despised these pseudo philosophers — political opportunists who could explain everything they saw, standing as it were at the window, but it never occurred to them to go in the street and take a hand in anything. The systems they propounded were an end in themselves. They led nowhere and could not serve as practical programmes. By them, everything could be explained, but nothing predicted. In the fifty years preceding the Fascist regime materialism and positivism reigned supreme in lecture rooms, press and books. The Italian spirit was in a state of torpor. Oriani in his last writings set forth with unmatchable passion all problems, anxieties, ideals, hopes of our times, exalting the potential Italian energies. He revolted against the deadening levelling tendency of democracy, socialism and the orthodox Church. Above all, he preached the dawn of a greater Italy.

 I must go into further details about Oriani, as he has been acclaimed the philosopher, the prophet, the saviour of Fascism.

 Nietzche divides humanity in two classes, aristocracy and the commons, denying almost every right to the latter, which should simply remain a tool for the elevation of the former. Oriani instead maintains that aristocracy and genius are pushing along "the mass," giving it value and bringing out its best men to join the "leaders," shape its course, and give a name to it.

 The mass is moved into action by instinct, the Aristocracy of Intelligence represents its conscience, while genius is its personification. Everything is elaborated in that immense cauldron, but is completed and shaped in its dynamic force by the intelligentsia.

 And if for Nietzche aristocracy meant something apart, altogether detached and differentiated, for Oriani it meant the highest exponent of society, the symbol of its purest ideals, "leader of the mass and its servant." Hence it must be a throng of heroes who realises its duties not only toward one part of humanity, but to-ward everybody. Heroes ready for all emergencies, ready for all sacrifices.

 The liberty of which democracy speaks is purely a lie. Only "authority" can bring justice. Contrasting interests, supported by ever-changing political parties, prevent justice from being meted out with even measure. Oriani wept at the ineptitude of Italy in colonial warfare. "Italy," he cries, "slave of an idle and ignorant democracy. Revolt, my beloved country, against everything and everybody. Light all your beacons because a revolution has begun. It has set out in the darkest of nights, but the dawn is near. The flush of dawn may look like blood, but fear not, march on, democracy is doomed." And with an astonishing prophetical afflatus Oriani in 1897 foresaw the world war, the fall of the great empires, the disruption and turmoil of the Slavonic world, and the overbearing plutocracy of the U.S.A. Also the progress and set-back of Socialism, the rousing of sane minorities destined to become the new aristocracy, different from those of blood and wealth.

 He hated Socialism not only for its ideologic substratum which could be a poetical mistake, but because it was a school of makeshift, of corruption and moral mediocrity. He maintained Socialism to be but a small tyranny, inefficient and timid, set up by a bogus aristocracy, the offspring of industrial labour, and by means of universal suffrage. Unscrupulous demagogues, weaklings, biologically, by pandering to the mass, became the rulers of nations.

 Could Oriani rise from his grave to-day and see the work of his formidable pupil, Mussolini. A new Italy, his beloved Italy, a great nation at last, setting to a bewildered world an example of a new national organisation in which the rights of labour and capitalism, the principle of authority and the principle of private initiative, the exigency of tradition, and needs of a new era are harmonised in a united effort to create and produce the moral and material wealth of the nation.

 MUSSOLINI.

 Mussolini is supposed to have taken his main ideas from G. Sorel and his philosophy from Oriani in building his Co-operative State. Two months ago Mussolini was asked by the compilers of the Enciclopedia Italiana to give in brief the essence of Fascism for publishing purposes. It was a very difficult task to translate it and reduce it to the essentials. However, here it is: "There cannot be a conception of the State which is not fundamentally a conception of life. Philosophy and intuition; system of ideas developing in logical sequence, united in vision and faith, but, virtually, an organic conception of the world.

 So Fascism is not to be understood in its many practical aspects as the organisation of a method, as a system of education, as discipline, but in its general working as conception of life. It works spiritually. The world, for Fascism, is not the material superficial world, where each is an individual, apart from his fellows, standing alone, governed by a natural law which induces him instinctively to lead a life of selfish and temporal pleasure. Each Fascist is a unit of the nation, obeying a moral law which binds individuals and races together in a tradition and in a mission which suppresses the instinct to live only for a brief round of pleasure; teaching, instead, the obligation of a higher life, self-denial by sacrifice of his own interests, even of his own life. Spiritual conception, therefore, arising from the general reaction of the age against the feeble and material positivism of the 19th century. Not sceptic, nor agnostic, nor pessimistic, nor positively optimistic like most of the theories (all negative) which would give the centre of life a place apart from man, who, with his free will can and should create his world for him-self. Fascism desires to rouse man to devote the whole of his power to action, bravely to recognise such difficulties as exist and to be ready to meet them.

 Fascism conceives life as a struggle where it is the part of each to gain for himself that which is really worthy of him, creating first of all in himself the instrument (physical, moral or intellectual) to achieve it, and as for the individual, so for the nation, so for humanity. Hence the great value of culture in all its forms, art, religion, science, and the superlative importance of education. Hence also the essential value of labor, by which man conquers Nature and creates the world, economic, political, moral and intellectual. This positive conception of life is manifestly an ethical conception. Every action must conform to moral judgment; nothing in the world can dispense with the value of striving towards moral ends. Life must be serious, austere, religious. Fascism scorns a "comfortable" life. It is a historical conception, in which man has only his being in the function of the spiritual process with which he co-operates, in the domestic and social groups, in the nation and in history, in which all nations co-operate. Hence the great value of tradition in memories, in language, in custom, in rules of social life.

 Without history man is nothing. 

Therefore, Fascism is contrary to all individual abstraction, with material foundation of the type of the 18th century, and is contrary also to Utopian and Jacobin innovations. It does not believe in the possibility of happiness on earth, as was the desire of the economist literature of 1700, and therefore rejects all the theological conceptions of a definite systematising of the human race at a certain period of history. That means going beyond history and life, which is continuous, flowing and developing. Fascism desires to be, politically, a realistic doctrine. Practically, it aims at solving only the problems which (history shows) have always presented themselves, and which automatically find or suggest their own solution. To operate amongst men, as in Nature, it is necessary to understand intrinsic processes and to master the powers in action.

 The Fascist conception is against individualism and for the State. It is for the individual in so far as the universal conscience and will of man in his historic existence agrees with the State. It is against classic liberalism, which arose from the need of reacting from absolutism and whose historic function passed when the State became the conscience and will of the people themselves. Liberalism denies the State in the interest of the private individual, Fascism declares the State to be the true personality of the individual. And if liberty should be the attribute of the real man and not of the puppet abstraction conceived by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism is for liberty and for the sole liberty which can be a serious matter, liberty of the State and of the individual included in the State.

 The Fascist State is synthesis and unity of every value. It interprets, develops and strengthens the whole life of the people. Therefore Fascism is contrary to Socialism, which cramps the historic movement in the class struggle and ignores the State unity which fuses classes into one economic and moral whole. Similarly, it is opposed to class syndicalism. Fascism recognises those exigencies in the orbit of the State from which syndicalism and the socialist movement derive their origin, and would consider them in the system of corporate interests conciliated in the unity of the State. It is not the nation which generates the State according to the obsolete conception which formed the base of the democratic States of the 19th century. On the contrary, the nation is created by the State, which conscious of its own moral unity gives to the people will power and thence effective existence. The right of a nation to independence comes not from a literary and idealistic consciousness of its own being, far less from a situation more or less unconscious or inert, but from an alert conscience from a will ready to act and prepared to declare its own right. In fact, the State, as Universal Ethical will, is the creation of the right.

 The nation, like the State, is an ethical fact which exists and lives while it develops. Stagnation means death. Therefore the State is not only authority which governs and gives laws and values of spiritual life to the individual wills, but it is also power which makes its will recognised and respected abroad, thus demonstrating its universality in all directions necessary to its development. The Fascist State is power, but spiritual power which includes all forms of moral and intellectual human life. It cannot therefore be limited to the simple function of order and protection, as liberalism would do. It is not a mere mechanism which defines the sphere of presumed individual liberty. Fascism, finally, is not only law-giver and founder of spiritual life. It would not remake the rules of human life, but its content : man, his character, his faith.

 And to this end it would have discipline and authority to penetrate deeply in the mind, and there to rule unchallenged.

 Therefore, its standard is the lictoral fasces, Symbol of Unity, Power and Justice."

 * * *

 Students of the University! You are on the threshold of life. Fortunate are you. A new world is coming into being. You only can shape it. What it is going to be no one knows. But the duel has started already: Intelligence versus the Mass; quality versus quantity; in short, democracy as it is commonly understood is on its trial. Allow me to urge you to take, as soon as you can, a hand in the affairs of our beloved country, Australia. Discard that shameful pandering to the lowest instinct of the populace, do not put the crowd on a pedestal and worship it. Tell everybody that you are the torch-bearers, that you must be the rulers. The mass must follow. The mass in its millennial evolution has remained a minor; it must be assisted, protected, stimulated, but never allowed to govern.

 There is to-day a greater gulf in vision of life and mental outlook between you and the man in the street than between Charlemagne and his swine-herd. And, do foster a healthy intercourse amongst spiritual leaders of all nations. Ideas, new ideas, we need, or we go under. A country aiming to be self-supporting, self-contained, is doomed. There are no water-tight compartments in the world, either moral, intellectual or economic.

 Here I have a vision: Who is that weary giant stumbling along with the sphere on his shoulder? He is Atlas, carrying the world. "Whither goest thou, Father Atlas? What is wrong with thee?" "This world is out of joint, and unless I find a remedy it may slip from my shoulders into chaos."

 Here a horde of tailors cobblers, mechanics of all sorts, cry to him: "Let us assist thee, Comrade Atlas; we have the panacea for all ailments." "Begone ye all, begone," he answered. "There in the dim distance I see the beacon light, the salvation of this unbalanced world. There it stands! A group of stately buildings; it is the University. Only Science, graced by love, which is understanding, can save the world. I will go there." 

Ladies and gentlemen, don't you hear Atlas knocking at the portals?

Italian Bulletin of Commerce (Sydney) 1 October 1932, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259097537

MR. HENRY TAYLOR AT HINDMARSH.

 ————<>————

Mr. Henry Taylor, the Honorary Commissioner of Emigration, gave an address on " The Farm Labourers' Revolt in England." The chair was occupied by Mr. James Weeks. A small book, entitled "Songs for Singing at Labourers' Meetings and Homes," was put into the hand of each person upon entering the Hall, and the proceedings were initiated by all present joining in a song selected from this book. Its opening verses, sung to the tune of "The Fine Old English Gentleman," were as follow : —https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=P7pFP2iQnVU

 “Come, lads, and listen to my song, a song of

honest toil,

 'Tis of the English labourer, the tiller of the

soil;

 I'll tell you how he used to fare, and all the ills

he bore,

 Till he stood up in his manhood, resolved to

bear no more.

 This fine old English labourer, one of the

present time.

 " He used to take whatever wage the farmer

chose to pay.

 And work as hard as any horse for eighteen

pence a day ;

 Or if he grumbled at the nine, and dared to ask

for ten,

 The angry farmer cursed and swore, and sacked

him there and then.

 This fine old English labourer, &c.”

 He used to tramp off to his work while town

folks were in bed.

 With nothing in his belly but a crust or two of

bread ;

 He dined upon potatoes, and he never dreamed

of meat,

 Except a lump of bacon fat sometimes by way

of treat.

 This fine old English labourer, &c.'.

 Mr. Taylor, upon rising, was received with loud and prolonged cheers. He said :— I don't apprehend at all any difficulty with you this evening. For the life of me I cannot see what we have to quarrel about, because what I have to say to you is simply a matter of fact — a matter of history, consequently it is not a matter for debate at all. I think I may say that the most important event in the social history of England, and one by no means unimportant to the political life of the mother-country during the present century, is the revolt of the farm labourer ; and when you through your Secretary invited me amongst you I thought it would not be uninteresting to you to hear something of the " old folks at home," feeling quite sure that none more than yourselves would rejoice to know of the elevation of the poorest and most dejected of our fellow-countrymen, of the liberation of the slave, and of the breaking asunder of the bonds of the British serf. It was in the month of February, 1872, that the warcry of the labourers was raised, and before proceeding to speak further of the movement we will briefly glance at the condition of the labourers immediately prior to that time, and look at the causes which led up to and made the movement a possibility. The condition of the rural population was that of almost complete subjection—of serfdom—to the village magnates—the lord, the squire, the parson, and the farmer. Badly housed, miserably clad, and working for starvation wages, their case seemed to be getting worse and worse, for in the olden times there used to be some show of a supplementary wage in the systematic bestowal of perquisites and parochial relief ; but these were failing, the farmer ceasing to recognise any responsibility beyond the payment of the nominal wage, be it ever so meagre or insufficient; and the poor law was becoming such a huge and expensive machinery, the screw being put on forcibly to throw the people upon their own resources ; and thus it was that in the "darkest part of the night" the daybreak of unionism dawned upon them, giving them hope and courage sufficient to successfully break the chain and demand the "liberty of the subject." The wages of farm labourers in the beginning of 1872, prior to the revolt, were as nearly as possible as I will state ; and I will take care not to exaggerate anything, for in very truth there is no need to do so. In Warwickshire—the county which the movement centres, and in which it took its rise—the men were receiving from 9s to 12s. per week, the difference, as in most other cases, being largely in proportion to the proximity of the village to towns and manufacturing centres; in Oxfordshire, from 8s. to 10s. ; Worcester, Dorset, Hereford, Wilts, Somerset, Devon, Essex, Beds, Cambridge, Herts, from 7s. to 10s. ; Surrey and Sussex, 1s. or 2s. higher ; and these sums you must understand to represent the wages independent of "tucker"— on the contrary, house rent, tucker, clothing, and other necessaries had to be miracled out of these wages into providing not only for the man who received it but often for a wife and family. I will not waste your time in any attempt to divide up these amounts and explain how they were made to meet domestic requirements, for hitherto I have failed, and it will be better as an exercise that you should go into the matter for yourselves. The social condition was very low ; the ignorance of the people was deplorable, and superstition abounded beyond belief. With little or no society beyond his intercourse with one or two others in the field, who were often kept at considerable distance apart to prevent conversation, he had no exercise for his mental faculties beyond the mechanical plodding about the farm or in the field, or if he once thought of his relation to society he would discern that he was a nonentity — no one noticing him or caring for him so long as he worked hard, kept off the rates, and refrained from “picking and stealing.” The farm labourer knew comparatively little of the world outside his own village, either as to the geographical relationship of our own country with others — anything beyond the boundary of England being to them " foreign parts,” whether it be America, Canada, the Cape, or the Australias — nor knew he anything of the condition of the labour market to enable him to make the best of his labour; nor could he well avail himself of any opportunity which might present itself at a distance, being continually in debt to the baker, who, as a matter of course could no longer supply the wife and family when the breadwinner had left, fearing lest he should lose what he had already advanced, for the beggardly condition of the labourer was such as to induce him to fraud and dishonesty — for who amongst us is prepared to hunger in a land of plenty ? In parish matters he was never consulted, nor his rights and privileges either known or recognised by himself or his " betters," who are frequently found fighting him now that he realizes and asserts them in the vestries and other parochial assemblies. Politically, of course, he was nowhere: having no vote, he was never consulted upon any matters whatever, however closely his interests were connected. There were a few exceptions, in the case of agricultural boroughs such as that of Woodstock, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, and created for the special benefit of noble lords and used accordingly, and where at one time either farmer or labourer would as soon dare to dispute the right of His Lordship to exist as to oppose him politically. Legally, he received plenty of attention: but lures and rabbits were protected to a much greater extent — the farmer who ran a dungfork into the behind parts of a labourer being fined five shillings for assault, whilst the snarer of a coney would receive two months' imprisonment as a felon. Cases arising from differences between master and servant, being in all cases decided by the employer class, were much the same as when the wolf caters for the lamb; for the labourers were mostly too poor to procure the defence which a lawyer would afford them, and the cases not being reported, or being reported by a ”local” entirely under the thumb of the magnates, there was no public opinion to operate as it is found to do so wholesomely in large communities where the Press is free; so that the law was frequently twisted and strained to pay off the grudges of bumptious J.P.'s whose dignities may have been assailed by the assertion of the liberties and independence of an exceptionally intelligent labourer who might feel the yoke too oppressive for his advanced stage of manhood. Such has been the conduct of the “great unpaid,'' and so infamously have they betrayed their trusts and privileges that they have become a byword and a reproach in the country districts that law in many cases is not so much respected as the invasion of it, and a Magistrate with a white necktie is regarded as about synonymous with a tyrant. And, verily, the revelations which have been brought to light through the operations of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union are such as to justify the people in their contempt towards such an institution, which has been such an engine of tyranny as to call forth denunciations from all communities, not excepting the Lord Chancellor himself, who, in the most severe language, rebuked a certain landlord, magistrate, barrister, and esquire named Wilberforce — a name he disgraced for summarily flogging two boys until the blood flowed in streams from them for having been in the field pursuing rabbits. We have taken care, since the labourers' movements have given us facilities, to expose and denounce many of the most flagrant injustices of these lordly tyrants ; but we have not been able to cope with one half of them. What was done in times previous when there was no one to keep a look out God only knows, but it was something terrible. The law in the hands of the rural J.P.'s was as the rod in the hand of the schoolmaster of the olden times, and was used as recklessly. The following song, composed by the Editor of the English Labourer, is a fair representation of the regard in which the labouring classes view the J.P. portion of their betters : —

 My name it is Squire Puddinghead,

 A Justice of the Peace, Sir,

 And if you don't know what that means,

 Just ask the rural p'lice, Sir.

 When culprits nabbed for petty crimes

 Within my Courts assemble,

 If I am sitting on the bench

 Oh ! don't I make them tremble

 At the great unpaid,

 Ask anything but justice

 Of the great unpaid.

 The cases that I have to try

 Are mostly small transgressions.

 So small, the Court in which I sit

 Is called the Petty Sessions ;

 A sort, of legal smalltooth comb,

 The offences are so tiny,

 You'd laugh at them, but you'd not laugh

 When I commence to fine ye.

 Oh ! the great unpaid, &c.

 If Polly Brown but takes a stick

 From Farmer Giles's fences,

 I fine her twopence as its worth,

 And fourteen bob expenses ;

 And if a tramp sleeps in a field,

 Such is my lordly bounty,

 I find him lodgings for a week —

 Provided by the county.

 The Union leaders I would hang

 'Twould be a task delightful.

 But since I can't, I am content

 To do the mean and spiteful ;

 And if my colleague, Captain Fair,

 Would be the poor's protector.

 The vilest things I dare to do

 Are backed up by the Rector.

 Oh ! the great unpaid !

 Ask anything but justice

 Of the great unpaid.

 This condition of things has given rise to a great agitation in favour of a better administration of justice, and for a Stipendiary Magistracy. The religious condition of the rurals was such generally as to afford little anxiety to the national shepherds, the clergy of the Established Church, who appeared to be “asleep in Zion.” They imagined that their flocks were well fenced in, and all that was necessary was an occasional walk round : their dogs, keepers, police, J.Ps., &c., were entrusted with the rest. For the most part the villages possessed the cardinal virtues ; they were “ poor, humble, and meek,” and rarely raised themselves beyond those boundaries. I noticed lately a paragraph in the English Labourer, giving as the Rev. G. Congrene's ideal of a Christian life an example in the Life of a Cornish farmers lad, who was so advanced in spiritual perfection that at last he gave six hours a day to devotion. This young man found the spiritual life in "fasting and early rising, six hours' daily prayer the mortification of the flesh, living on plain food, dressing in the cheapest clothes, dwelling among the poor, giving up all his means, and maintaining himself by daily labour on his father's farm, and constantly in spiritual anatomization." I need hardly tell you that there are no priests or clergy of any denomination who have faith enough in this kind of thing to live it themselves, and I must confess that I am quite as sceptical ; and yet there are hundreds of men getting good livings by preaching this and similar impracticable rot and falsehood to the poor of my country. The clergy of the Established Church are not alone responsible for thus teaching poverty, and submission to what was libellously called Divine Providence; it was preached week by week by dissenters, itinerant and local preachers, who seemed quite sincere ; and the tongues of those who held clearer views of the Divine will were silenced, because there seemed to be no way of escape. Now and then we heard a voice crying in the wilderness, a few solitary prophets denouncing the social wrongs, and doing what they could to improve the condition of the people; such was that venerable and godly man Canon Girdlestone, who for years stood out on the side of the oppressed, enduring the calumny and reproach of his neighbours. He assisted as many as he could to emigrate and migrate to better fields of labour, and so has earned the right to live in our memories, revered and respected; but, good man as he was, Canon Girdlestone could never understand what we meant by freedom for the labourer; and although he worked, and was prepared to co-operate with others to assist and benefit the poor, yet he could never realize the independence of the people and the possibility of their doing for themselves what he had recognised as the duty of other classes to do for them. And let me not be misunderstood to underestimate the kind feeling and benevolence of many who in their own way and through pity, did much to alleviate the sorrows of the poor, when I say that many of these their apparently greatest friends were the greatest opponents of the labourer's efforts at self-help and independence—threatening those who dared to assert such a position with all kinds of penalties involved in the withdrawal of their patronage. Whilst all these things were so there was a gradual and continual work going on— unnoticed but none the less sure— which must ultimately produce its fruits. Through the dames' schools and the parish schools, inefficient as they were, and with all the stumbling-blocks and barriers raised by a bigoted directorate mostly centred in the parish clergyman, there was and had long been a leaven of education which had done some thing amongst the naturally shrewd peasantry. That bugbear dissent had made sad havoc against the law and doctrine of "constituted authority;" and with all the strange doctrines preached by an oftimes illiterate local preacher in the "conventicle," there was the seed of revolt against a condition of things which seemed wrongs in the light of a growing intelligence. We shall not be likely to attach too much importance to the work of dissenters in the villages, to whom we are indebted very largely for the life and energy which were remaining to the labourers prior to 1872. Where dissent was most rife, there was found the most spirit and courage in the people ; and where only the Established Church predominated, there was most servility and cowardice, unless in some very exceptional cases where the clergyman was a better man, and not a worse, for holding such a position. Another force was at work. The railways were being carried in every direction through the rural districts, making it possible for men in the towns and cities to come more in contact with each other. The penny Press soon found a growing circulation in the villages; and thus Reynolds, Lloyd, and others commenced to talk strange things to enquiring disciples, which gradually made them very uneasy. It occasionally told them of cruel injustices which were practised, and how the perpetrators had been punished and held up to reprobation; and in comparing the reported case with their own circumstances they often found their own case the worse of the two, which made them restless and anxious for redress. They read of Trades Unions and strikes, and their hearts burned within them when they read of the triumph of the worker, and sank when the men were defeated. Now, men in the villages — the most plucky of them — had commenced working for railway contractors for a better wage ; some had gone to cities and towns — had dared to tear themselves away from their old associations: the village church and steeple, with its chiming bells on the Sabbath, was no small thing to sacrifice: and as each man wrote home, and forwarded to his wife and family the means of maintenance, or re-visited his village, the spirit of revolt was sown. All these things could be clearly seen by those who watched the signs of the times and who study cause and effect. Professor Beesley, in a pamphlet written five years prior to the starting of the movement, predicted that in that space of time in all probability there would be a rising of the farm labourers : and so it happened. Subsequent events proved how effectually the above causes had been in operation, for at the blast of the first trumpet men came forth from all parts of the oppressed rural districts, possessing such a power of natural eloquence and intelligence, though with a scanty education, which surprised everybody. It is a disputed question as to where the first sound was heard, nor does it signify much ; the field was ripe for the harvest, and whilst Joseph Arch was holding forth as much to the surprise of himself as of his neighbours, Teddy Haynes in Warwickshire, George Ball in Lincolnshire, and numbers of others in other directions were busily engaged in calling upon the poor to revolt against their miserable condition and demand a livelihood more compatible with our civilization. I cannot refrain from mentioning the name of J. E. Matthew Vincent, who at the risk — and no small one as that time — of the withdrawal of patronage, hurried to the assistance of Joseph Arch in making his voice heard in the country, and who, together with William Gibson Ward, a fierce and powerful writer, started the first paper which espoused the cause of the labourer in such a way as to command the attention of all classes. I do not mention these individuals and their work with less pleasure than I feel regret that they have not shown themselves more stanch to the principles which they at first professed to advocate. These have now no part in the matter, the English labourer having superseded the first. The labourers of Warwickshire had no sooner conceived the notion of uniting than the farmers, clergy, and squires, with Sir C. Mordaunt at their head, met in solemn conclave to consider this shocking ingratitude of the men, spoke of their kindness to the men in charities and perquisites, declared that they must " nip it in the bud," the Rev. Canon Holbeach declaring that it was "seditious and wicked," and resolutions condemnatory were passed by this "union of the powers" to stamp out the union of laborers, and they decided to give a week's notice to all who belonged to the movement to leave their employ. This they carried out, and at the end of the first week some 300 men were without means of subsistence, and many of them under notice to quit their homes. In the meantime I had been solicited, by some labourers in a village near Leamington, to address them on Unionism, and help them to start. Why they came to me I know not : I had never been in public, nor was I in the least a speaker, but a quiet homely man. Nevertheless I could not refrain, and with my shopmates we went over after our day's work was over, and, meeting a vast audience of labourers and their wives and daughters, we started a branch of the Union. I had the honour that week — the week the men were under notice to leave — to write the first appeal to the Trades Unionists and the country for help, which was liberally responded to, and which saved the men from submission, or perhaps a more violent rebellion. The Daily Telegraph and the London Daily News at first, and then other influential newspapers, espoused the cause of the labourer, and from almost all classes expressions of sympathy, as well as practical help, was forthcoming. Politicians of the advanced school imagined that they could see a power arising which might be of service to the party of progress. Social reformers rejoiced at the ''shaking of the dry bones,'' and conceived a grand change in society as a result of the movement : and thousands who have no sympathy whatever with workmen's combinations came forward to assist the labourer to a bigger loaf and his social and political rights. But there was another party, of immense strength, who, whilst they did not deny the labourers' right to sufficient food, were not prepared to concede any social or political position, knowing full well that in proportion as the labourer's influence and power was increased, theirs must diminish. This cut them to the core, and it was not to be wondered at if they resisted what they considered an encroachment on their “divine right” to govern. The farmers, upon whom the demand for a better wage was made, resisted upon two pleas — it affected their profits, and to them it presented itself as an interference with his right to decide for himself what he should pay his men — as though the seller should abide by the price fixed by the buyer for his commodity ; but, however absurd the arguments and notions of these employers may appear to us who can look without prejudice upon the question, there is no doubt of the sincerity of those who held them, who were quite satisfied that they were rendering a service to the poor men themselves if they could only destroy this most seditious Union and protect them from the seductive influences of the agitators. Who were the agitators ? Mostly labouring men from the field— men of power in speech who were pained with the smarts of the oppression which in common with those to whom then appealed they had been subjected in the past; and men who, if their knowledge of political economy was not of a sound order, were yet decided in their faith that their condition was not such as industrious men were entitled to. These expressions were uttered with tongues of fire, and they appealed effectively to tens of thousands of awakening souls, who aforetime were cast down and hopeless. These agitators were, as a rule, morally, the best men of their class, of good repute, chosen by the people themselves as their philosophers and guides, and far away from them I am happy in testifying to their industry and integrity; for I believe there were never so many men so hurriedly called forth to so important a work who acted more faithfully in their calling. Great and good men allied themselves to the movement in its early stages ; some of them are still stanch and tried friends. Mr. J. S. Wright, Alfred Arnold, and Jessie Collings, of Birmingham ; Rev:. F. S. Attenborough, of Leamington ; J. C. Cox, Mr. S. Morley and others in London are amongst the number who have rendered us valuable assistance, and to whom the labourers of England will be always indebted. In March, 1872, the first district was formed in Warwickshire, and in June the movement, had so far spread as to justify a union of the various districts in the country, which took place on the 29th, when a National Union was formed, with Joseph Arch as President, with an Executive Committee of 12 labourers, and a Consulting Committee of gentlemen who were known to be favourable to the movement, and myself as the General Secretary; There were also elected a number of men known as delegates, whose duty it was to go into the villages and invite those who were ready for union, and stir up those who were not. Now the war was raging. The farmers declared that they would not be interfered with by outsiders, but would manage their business in their own way; they averred also that their men were stirred up by designing politicians, socialists, and men of disrepute. All kinds of tyranny were practised ; whole families turned headlong out of their homes irrespective of legal process, thousands discharged from employment, poor relief cut off from the sick and infirm relatives of Unionists, parish doles were cut off, damnatory sermons preached at them, all kinds of threats were used, and the conspiracies of the farmers who amalgamated to crush the Union made the thing quite lively. Union poets arose who wrote songs reminding the men of bondage and inspiring them to patriotism. These were sung at thousands of meetings by tens of thousands of poor men and women who were looking to the Union as their only hope and refuge, and the greater the persecutions the greater were the bonds of sympathy and cause for united effort. There were numerous stand-up fights, and what with the courage of the new-born enthusiasts and the financial assistance of the members and friends of the Union, backed by public sympathy, the men almost invariably won ; and notwithstanding reverses and defeats, which were often as beneficial as victories, the Union soon succeeded in making some 50,000 members, with an average rise in the wages of agricultural labourers of 3s. per week all round. In 1874 there was a dead stand made against the Union in Suffolk, where at one time there were some 6,000 men thrown on the funds. The farmers combined ostensibly for the purpose of resisting certain rules of the Union and a rise in wages— the rate then being paid was 13s. — but the disguise was soon removed, and it was soon seen that it was against the Union itself they were fighting; and they declared that until the labourers gave up their newspaper and the voices of Arch, Ball, and Taylor were silenced, they would come to no terms with the men. The contest lasted for some months, costing us many thousands of pounds, which was raised from members' contributions and public subscriptions, which flowed in from all sources. Through want of energy in the men, which I can well excuse, and the season being favourable to the farmer, we could not claim a decisive victory, although we maintained our Union, and are stronger in that country to-day than ever; but it cost the fanners to such an extent that it is doubtful if they lightly undertake such another job. Moreover, whilst this battle was going on the farmers in other parts of the country were awaiting the results, whilst the men were strengthening their Union. Doubtless, if the farmers in the eastern counties had had an easy triumph there would soon have been attacks all round the lines. It was during this conflict that I conceived and carried out the idea of marching some 70 farmers' labourers from Newmarket to the North, finishing at Halifax, where the Trades Unionists organized a demonstration with 15 brass bands, and a procession of the whole of the Unionists — many thousands. To the credit of the Trades Unionists of England in each town we came to they met us right nobly, and so besides sending to the funds a net of nearly £800 Relief Committees were formed from which we received weekly contributions of money. There are continually little squabbles occurring in different parts of the country which waste a good deal of money, but which resists the tyrannical powers of the farmers, who have many of them yet to learn that there must be two to a bargain in lieu of one, as in former times. A great deal of money has been expended in law in resisting legal oppression, and the “ powers that be”  have been quite surprised to know ; the law, having been in the habit of dealing with questions according to their own notions or feelings. Large sums of money have also been expended in the removal of its members from badly-paid districts to places where labour is in demand. Large numbers have also been assisted to emigrate, and I am glad to say that our emigration policy has been very satisfactory, simply because, as a rule, the members are such as an agricultural or new colony requires. We have been gratified to receive so many testimonies from those who have emigrated to the effect that their position and prospects have been improved. I have received one during the past week from a couple from our Society, which is very pleasing. Our agricultural labourers at home are, in my opinion, far too numerous for their own good, and it will be well when they have the world for their market. The National Agricultural Labourers' Union has been a great success: it has been and is still a great educational power, and although the labourers have much to learn which has been gained by others through experience, and which can be secured through no other channel, I know of no means so likely to educate them economically, socially, or politically as the Society afforded them in their organization. They will blunder as all others do; but their aims are good, and under the direction of men in the future as good as those who have hitherto assisted them there need be no fears entertained as to the future. You will be glad to know that a work much greater than could possibly have been done by private benevolence for the poor has been performed by the poor for themselves by the application of the principle of self-help. The Union is now in healthy condition, having in its funds upwards of £8,000 accumulated out of the contributions of its members, who pay 2d. per week; it has given to the labourer a place in society which was hitherto denied to him: it has freed their labour and made the markets of the world accessible to them: its eye is vigilant upon those who would otherwise disregard the just claim of its members, and through its instrumentality the enfranchisement of the rate payer in the village as in the city is only a thing of the immediate future. Lord Suffield some time since, speaking of the Union, remarked, " Let us pinch them with hunger — that will bring them to their senses." And so it is, although not in the sense in which that bloated aristocrat meant it. It was the pinching which caused the revolt, and now that they have realized the power of combination they will never be content with anything short of what their growing intelligences teach them is right; and thus they will only share with all other classes of society the laudable desire and ambition to advance with the times.

South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Wednesday 10 January 1877, page 7

Liberalism and Protestantism

 ROOT CAUSES OF "SOCIAL QUESTION" :: LIBERALS REPUDIATE DIVINE AUTHORITY IN SOCIAL LIFE.

Unchristian liberalism began in England and spread to the Continent where it paved the way for the French Revolution. It is the direct outcome of the principles of Protestantism and repudiates divine authority in public and social life, which, according to its ideals, should be organised and conducted as if God did not exist. Liberal teaching rejects or ignores the whole supernatural order, including divine revelation, a divinely instituted Church and man's predestination to eternal life.

BY E. CAHILL, S.J.

Unchristian Liberalism is a direct outcome of the principles of Protestantism. Beginning in England, it spread into France where it prepared the way for the Revolution (1789), after which it gradually impressed itself on the public life of nearly every country in Europe and America. Liberal principles and policy are the root causes of the evils comprised under what is usually called the "Social Question"; and are at present the greatest obstacle to social prosperity and peace. Resting on an assumption of man's innate independence of any authority or rule of conduct outside himself, Liberal teaching rejects or ignores the whole supernatural order, including divine revelation, a divinely instituted church, and man's predestination to eternal life. Without formally committing themselves to a positive denial of God's existence or His possible claims on men in their individual capacity, Liberals repudiate all divine authority in public and social life, which, according to their ideals, should be organised and conducted as if God did not exist; much less will they take account of the teaching of our Divine Lord, or acknowledge the authority of the church which He founded. Absolute and unlimited freedom (and by freedom the Liberals mean licence) including freedom of thought, of religion and of conscience; unchecked freedom of speech and of the Press, freedom in political and social institutions, is according to Liberal principles man's inalienable right. These un-Christian principles, which, by their repudiation of divine authority are in opposition even to the natural law, are applied by Liberals to the moral, political and economic spheres. Modern systems of statecraft, of civic organisation, of international relations, etc., have been shaped largely under the influence of their principles. Hence Liberalism tends strongly to reproduce in society the most repulsive features of pagan civilisation.

"Put Out the Lights of Heaven."

Freemasonry, permeated and reinforced by international Judaism, has been the strongest driving force behind the Liberalist movement during the past two centuries. Socialism, which is opposed to many of the economic and political principles of Liberalism, is in harmony with it in its materialistic view of life, and in its assumption of man's emancipation from a supernatural or divine law. The Catholic Church, with its hierarchical constitution, and its God-given power of authoritative teaching, forms the only effective barrier against the progress of Liberalism. This fact has always been frankly recognised by the Liberal leaders. Voltaire's impious cry: "Ecrasez l'Infame" (Crush and destroy the unsightly monster, viz., the Catholic Church) has been re-echoed down to our own day by Voltaire's disciples, who openly proclaim it their aim to "put out the lights of Heaven," and who would fain believe that Catholic principles and authority, even in Ireland, are doomed to the fate of "icebergs in warm water." The words of Charles Bradlaugh (d. 1891), a professed atheist and one of the founders of the present secularist or extreme Liberalist movement in Britain, are equally significant: — "One element of danger in Europe is the approach of the Roman Catholic Church towards meddling in political life . . . There is danger to freedom of thought, to freedom of speech, to freedom of action. The great struggle in this country (England) will not be between Free Thought and the Church of England . . . but between Free Thought and Rome."

Vague and Intangible.

In order to convey a general but connected idea of modern Liberalism which, like Protestantism, is often vague and somewhat intangible, partaking more of the nature of a spirit permeating modern society than of a definite and consistent system, we shall give a brief sketch first of intellectual Liberalism, often called Rationalism or Naturalism, which forms the philosophic ground-work of the movement; secondly, of political Liberalism or Secularism upon whose principles the constitutions of most modern states are largely modelled, and finally of economic Liberalism. which reached its apogee in the 19th century, and is closely allied with modern capitalism. 

REPUDIATION OF REVELATION.

 The spirit and tendency of the un-Christian Humanism of the 15th century, and still more the principle put forward by the 16th century Reformers that every individual has the right of interpreting divine revelation according to his own judgment without the aid of a teaching Church, opened the way, first to a repudiation of all supernatural revelation, and then to Atheism and Materialism. During the second half of the 17th century there arose in England a school of Freethinkers and Deists whose teachings without spreading, for the time being, to any great extent in England itself, exerted much influence in France and the Continental countries. A few of these Deists remained nominally Christian, but most rejected completely all supernatural religion; and some threw doubt even on the existence of God. Among the best known were John Locke, author of the "Essay on the Human Understanding." (d. 1704). John Hobbes, author of the "Leviathan"; Collins, Roland, Tyndal, Charles Blount, Lord Bolingbroke, etc., and later on, Hume and Berkeley. Protestant Germany gave birth to a similar Rationalistic school, founded on the teachings of Leibnitz, Wolf and others, whose names were afterwards overshadowed by that of Emmanuel Kant, the greatest of German Rationalistic philosophers, and the real founder of the modern German Rationalistic School.

 FRANCE CENTRE OF MOVEMENT.

 France, however, was, or soon became, the real centre of the Naturalist movement. The ground had been prepared there by the Gallican and Jansenistic propaganda of the preceding generation and by the strong Rationalistic tendencies of Descartes' philosophy. But the principal cause of the rapid spread of the movement was the moral corruption which had eaten, like a canker, into the wealthy classes, the aristocracy, and even the clergy. Voltaire brought from England the doctrines of the English Freethinkers and Deists, and with Jean Jacques Rousseau, became the most powerful apostle of the new ideas. Soon a whole galaxy of brilliant writers appeared, filled with the spirit of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and Voltaire. Ecclesiastical authority, religion, revelation all the cherished ideals and principles of Christianity, were now persistently held up to ridicule in poetry, romance, drama, letters, historical and philosophical treatises, written mostly in a brilliant and very attractive style. The extreme Rationalistic doctrine, which denies the existence of God, and the immortality of the human soul, rejects the moral law, and proclaims war against all authority, was summarised in the celebrated "Encyclopedie." This monumental work, the first of its kind, appeared about the middle of the 18th century, under the editorship of Diderot and d'Alembert, and immediately secured unprecedented popularity. In the "Encyclopedie" all kinds of subjects were treated and discussed, sometimes with a superficial veneer of fairness and impartiality, but always with the underlying purpose of discrediting Christianity. Diderot, in whose mind the virtue of chastity is only the result of ignorant prejudice, sketched an ideal society whose perfection lies in the complete gratification of the sexual passions, while the professed ambition of Naigeon, one of the Diderot's disciples, was to "strangle the last of the priests with the entrails of the last of the kings." This anti-religious campaign in France, resulting in the excesses and religious persecution associated with the French Revolution, was the first great effort of the Liberal anti-Christian revolt, which has continued to spread and gain strength down to our own day. 

EXTREME AND SELFISH INDIVIDUALISM.

 During the 19th century the Rationalistic movement manifested itself in the pseudo-philosophic theories of Pantheism, Materialism and Positivism, culminating in the Modernism, Neo-Gnosticism, Theosophism, Christian Scientism, etc., of the present day. The movement has gathered into its wake most of the perverted intellectual forces of Europe outside the Catholic Church. It has spread more or less into every country, but has taken deepest hold in France, Britain, the Protestant portions of Germany, the United States of North America, and the British Dominions. The Pantheistic philosophy of Kant and Hegel in Germany, tending to make each individual a kind of God unto himself, and setting up actual fact, the "fait accompli," as the sole criterion of what is reasonable and right, leads, when applied to social life, to a glorification of brute force, and contains besides a philosophic ground-work for the most extreme and selfish individualism. The whole philosophy of Materialism, as propounded by Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer and others, and especially the theories of the Evolutionists, including those of "struggle for life" and "the survival of the fittest," as well as Nietzche's theory of the "superman," for whose sake other men are born to toil, have similar practical applications.

 POSITIVISM.

 Positivism, which was first put forward by Auguste Comte (d. 1857), was widely adopted by French and English Rationalists, such as J. S. Mill, during the second half of the century. In this system a new deity is set up for men to worship and serve. That deity is none other than Humanity. Positivism, while encouraging a vague and ineffective philanthropy or humanitarianism, has a predominant tendency, like all forms of Rationalism, to an extreme and unnatural individualism. For a Positivist of the average type of character tends to regard himself as representing Humanity, and consequently to consider himself, and not God, as the summit and centre of the Universe, towards whose glorification all his interests and efforts most converge. Modernism, Neo-Gnosticism, Kabbalism, Theosophism, Spiritism, etc., are at present the most dangerous and insidious form of Rationalism and Naturalism. The Modernists, who aimed at remaining within the Church's fold while working to undermine her teaching, were condemned by Pius X. in 1903. They deny or strive to whittle down and explain away by specious reasoning everything supernatural, including miracles, divine revelation, supernatural grace, etc. Neo-Gnosticism essays to get rid of a deity distinct from man and to whom man is responsible. Hence they deny the dogma of creation. All things, according to their philosophy, are in some way or other emanations of the divine essence: hence man himself is practically identified with the deity, so that whatever he thinks or does must be right and good.

 DIRECT INFLUENCE OF THE DEVIL.

 Neo-Gnostic philosophy is practically the same as that of the ancient Gnostics so often referred to in the New Testament and the writings of the early Fathers of the Church. This philosophy has reappeared at different times in the history of the Church assuming various shapes, but remaining always substantially the same, and invariably tending to supply an apparent justification for the unrestrained gratification of man's worst passions. It was under varying forms the underlying philosophy of the Manichaeans of the 5th century, of the Albigenses of the 12th century, of the Waldenses, etc., of later times. It was the heresy, too, of which the Templars of the 15th century were rightly or wrongly accused. Gnosticism and Neo-Gnosticism are closely associated with the occult practices and beliefs of certain pre-Christian secretaries of the East which have always attracted a certain type of depraved minds, and seem to show strong indications of the direct influence of the evil one. Gnosticism and its different manifestations are not improbably the heresy or philosophy to which St. Paul is said to refer in his First Epistle to Timothy: "In the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy and having the conscience seared."*

The Kabbalists and Theosophists are closely associated with the Neo-Gnostics, and their theories are only different manifestations of the same desire to free man from all supernatural law, and even from the rule and authority of God. Kabbalism, which betrays the Jewish influence in the modern Naturalistic movement, would found its Rationalistic doctrines on ancient Jewish tradition. Theosophy relies for all knowledge, and especially for knowledge of the deity, upon some kind of interior revelation of illumination, the result of the study and contemplation of secret rites and symbols. It is closely allied to Brahminism and Buddhism, and tends to teach some kind of universal faith which would be as it were, a common denominator in which all religions and creeds would agree. For according to the Theosophists, all religions of all times, including Christianity, are but different manifestations of the one true religion, which the Divine Wisdom reveals under varying forms suited to different times, places, and persons.

 TENDENCY TOWARDS DESTRUCTION.

 All these phases of Naturalism are closely associated with the present day Judaeo-Masonic movement, whose aim and object is the destruction of Christianity. The propagation of the Neo-Gnostic pseudo-philosophy, as well as that of the Kabbalists, the Illuminists, the Theosophists, the Spiritists, etc., is in fact the most dangerous phase of the war now waged throughout the world against the Church by the Masonic and Jewish sectaries. Their philosophy cuts deeper into Christian life and affects more fatally the Christian organism of society than their purely political and governmental activities, as it tends to destroy the very foundations of all Christian morality and belief.

* I. Tim. I.V., 1-2.

Catholic Advocate (Brisbane, Qld. 1927,)http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article258727750