"Let no man seek his own, but each his neighbour's
good." The principle is of corporate as well as of individual
application. In an ideally Christian society, the interests of
"Labour" would be the sole concern of "Capital," the interests of
"Capital" the sole concern of "Labour": and the message of the Church
to the contending parties should be, now as always, "Sirs, ye are
brethren."
Neither party, however, is likely at present to pay much heed to such
a message, which is apt to sound like an abstract and theoretical
truism remote from the actualities of life. In point of fact, the
large sections of the population who live permanently near or below
the poverty line are largely precluded by lack of leisure from
entering into the Christian heritage of the spiritual life, and are
too much obsessed by the daily struggle for material existence to have
patience with exhortations to regard with sympathy either the
temptations or the good intentions of the well-to-do. The latter in
turn are apt to resent any attempt to stir in them a social conscience
with regard to the problems of poverty or the fundamental causes of
labour "unrest," to regard the security of dividends as conveniently
guaranteed by the laws of GOD, and to hold, in a general way, that
everything has hitherto been ordered for the best in the best of all
possible worlds.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193