RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1920, 1 December 1913, Page 11

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

* ETHICS OF PROPERTY, SPEECHES AT CHURCH CONCfiESS. BY. DR. SCOTT HOLLAND, LOBI) HUGH CECIL, AND OTHERS. A very interesting discussion took pfacc at thei Anglican Church Congress at Southampton ou tho "Ethic.s of Property." AVheu it k mentioned that the selected speakers included Lord Hugh Cecil, Prolcssar H. S. Holland (Cliirisi/iaii Social Union), Jlr. .Philip Siioivden, U.P., a prominent member of the Church Socialist League, and Mr. J. 11. Claphatn (who was Professor of Economics at Leeds University from 1902 to 1908), "it will he obvious," as "The Times" remarks, "that if«e debate was Jiot lacking in instruction or variety."

Collective Ownership. .. Professor Scott Holland argued that property, in-somc""shapo or ono of the primal conditions of personal development-. Background, continuity, stability, coherence, structural security—all these tho human personality required if it was to disco','-or its strength and develop its capacities. And all this it could only gain through ownership, in a community of owners. Tho problem, then, was how to extend ownership so that no qualified citizen should be without it. Not the elimination of property, but its extension, was what wo required. ■ (Hear, hear.) How couid this bo dono? Thero were ways of relief by which already something had been achieved. The wage-earners had found, by massing their contributions, how to securo a collectivo power of ownership. (Hear, hear.) They had gathered together, out of accumulated small subscriptions persistently reserved, tho vast funds of their trade unions; and with these resources in reserve, thsj could recapture much of the moral force which property carried with it-. They gained stability and continuity. They could look ahead, beyond tho weekly wage. They could press a policy; anticipate a crisis; survive a momentary pressure; escape from tho tyranny of tho present; anticipate and secure some measurable sequence in the passing of tho days, by which their lives received tho inspiration of a- consistent purpose. Could collectivo ownership have the samo moral effeot as private ownership? Now, this was a crucial question; and tho answer entirely depended on what a personality really was. We were desperately prone to imagine that a personality was an individual: self-con-tained: finite. So tho very essence of property appeared to us to lie in its being private: isolated: particular. But what if a self-contained personality was a contradiction in terms? Personality had no existence except in and through followship. God, who was Personal, was for that very reason. Love. Personality was inherently collectivo, and might well find its full measure o£ exorcise through collectivo own-ership. (Hear, hear.) V'e were justified in hoping great tilings by extending therange of collective ownership, until every single citizen had bccomo conscious of possessing t'lio solid and fru'tful background of life, which it was tho privilege of ownership to bring with it. That was the ideal of which ono dreamed, and for which one worked. No lifo at the mercy of tho accidental. No life deprived of its human prerogative to look before and after. No lifo ■dissipated in broken shifts, and meaningless chances. No lifo that had not, to-day, somo assurance of tho broad for to-morrow. No lifo trembling on tho surface of a quaking morass, with no bedrock below its feet. (Cheers.)

Socialism and Private ownership. Lord Hugh Cecil, M.P., said tho only controversial point in 'Professor Scott Holland's speech was the reference to eollectivo ownership. Such ownership was now realised in the family, but it was only desirable when tho owners were joined together by a hand of aft'cction. When they were not- so joined collective ownership would never answer, because there would bo no means of determining what the share of each individual ought to be. How could anybody determine whether the engine-driver ought to havo less or more than tho carpenter, the milkman than tho labourer, the doctor than the surgeon? Lot people picture to themselves an attempt to determino whether 0110 politician deserved moro than another, or tho reverse. (Laughter.) In truth, tho division would be settled not by ethical consideration, but by tho amount of pressuro which the various classcs could put 011 tho Government. (Hear, hear.) There would be a. system of competition much moro bitter than that now in force. All the diseases of modern, social, and political life would bo welded together in . 0110 gigantic malady for tho affliction of the human race. (Laughtor and cheers.) The right of property was based on natural instinct. Everyone had a sense that certain things belonged to him, and he felt hurt if that sense- was disregarded. If it were generally ignored tho Eighth Commandment would standas an ancicnfc monument of a morality once respected. (Laughter.) 111 spito of a certain argument sometimes used tho apostolic system was 0110 of private ownership subject to the call of duty, and that was tho root of the whole Christian system of ethics in relation to property. (Cheers.) Ho did not rule out tho right of tho State to regulate property within certain Jimit-s. No one had irresponsible power over what belonged to him. Tho rights of property must he exercised according to tho law of love. (Cheers.) In his opinion the war on poverty was going to be successful. It made great advances in tho Nineteenth Century. (Hear, hear.) He was anxious that in this conflict the Church should not bo behind the times as it had been in the past; But if Churchmen really wished to do good they should preach to comfortable people the dangers of comfort. Tho great spiritual danger of the future would bo not'in tho sufferings ,from Lazarus, which were going to bo abated, but in the sins of lives which were to bo multiplied. He was not alluding to gross sins such as drunkenness and so on, but to tho quiet, self-assertive selfishness which all eomfortablo people exhibited. That was the state of affairs with which the Church would have to deal if, as he believed, povc-rty was going to be moro and more diminished. —(Cheers.) '

Church Socialist League Opinion. The llev. Conrad Noel said extreme communists would havo us bclievo that any kind of property was an evil in itself, and several early Christian authorities calendared for our honouring in the Prayer Book could be quoted ill support, but the good sense of tho Catholic Church had avoided this extromo communistic conclusion. Property meant simply that- which was appropriate to its owner, and it was obviously not appropriate to any man that he should own so many fielils that he had to ask his coachman or his bailiff,

•'Does such and such a field belong to my estate?" On the other hand, material things were not in themselves an evil, and it was right that every normal •and healthy person should possess enough of material things for his due self-expression. It was because he helioved in liberty and property defence that 110 belonged to the Church Socialist League, which "desires (he. industrial rearrangement of society precisely in order to secure to the majority of mankind tho property it has produced and UlO liberty it has hitherto been denied." (Hiar, hear.) Mr. Snowdon, M.p,, on Church and Poor. Mr. P. Snowden, M.P., Wt thai, the selection of such a. subject- as the ethics of property for consideration at the

Church Congress was an impressive sjftn ol the times. As one whoso activities wore mainly absorbed in the work ol politics and social reform, lie gratctully welcomed llie si;4iis of a reawakening <>t (] IG soc-inl consciousness of nie Christian CliureJi anil its evident iicsiro in sr-e that social relations and ,' a ) vs °' property were based upon Christian principles and the eternal moral law. (Hear, hear.) The root caues ol poverty was the law of property. Much of tho poverty which appeared c-n tho surface to be due to individual iaults or weaknesses had its primary cause in economic and social emiditiuns, Poverty was not a divineinstitution, and tho possession and use of property were necessary to the living of a healthy, rational, and moral life. Hard and useful work was, generally speaking, remunerated by the lowest pay, ana great fortunes riuue to individual's who had rendered no useful lnbour nor performed any useful social service. A notorious pugilist was paid a thousand times tho wages of a bricklayer's labourer, aud a successful comic singer more than tho Prime Minister of England —or a Bishop.- {Laughter.) A successful speculator in the commercial market or on tho Stock Exchange would appropriate in a single day the wealth produced in that time by the labour of ten thousand workmen. A landowner slept while the valuo of his land went tip through the energy and enterprise of labour and directive skill. Only that form of property ownership was moral which enabled the individual to make the best of himself, and which gave to tho community tho maximum of benefit. Or, put negatively, property ownership was immoral when it initiated moral injury on tho individual owning the property and ou society. That was the result of the present system of property ownership. It was impossible tbat in these modern times everybody could individually be a landowner or a capitalist. But the ownership and uso of property was essential for all. Therefore it could only bo brought about by cooperative ownership. (Hear, hear.) If tlio Church failed m its duty to insist upon the application of Christian ethics to the acquisition aud uso of property, other agencies would take up that work, for there was a- spirit abroad which was determined that the poor should not- bs with us always, and that as tho earth was given to all tho children of men, its fruits should bo for their equal inheritance. (Hear, hear.)

National Ownership Liable to Abuse. Mr. J, 11. Clapham, who was Professor of Economics at Leeds University from 1902 to 1908, maintained that if sweeping assertiop.3 of the sacredness of ail private property no l-anger carried full moral weight, sweeping claims that society, the public, alone had, or should have, rights over the most important forms of property were equally unconvincing. That society—which in practice meant- a majority ill some particular nation —had a- moral right, say, to own all capital, was not • capable of proof. (Hear, hear.) Nineteenth century history had strengthened the loathsiomo abuses to which individual proprietary rights were open. .On the other hand, national proprietary rights wore also open to abuse; and society, which was unthinkable without the individuals that composed it, could not acquire rights—proprietary or other —to the absolute exclusion of the corresponding rights of individuals. It could acquire power but not right. (Hear, hear.) Individual human freedom to be complete implied a measure of individual control over the world of matter, or, in other words, some, rights of property. And this was true not only of individuals, but of societies other than the State, which were or'teu overlooked in these discissions. The orthodox Socialist formula, "the nationalisation of the moans of production, distribution, and exchange/' Sid not leave adequate loom for the proprietary'rights of the innumerable organisations, private and semi-public, upon whose healthy functioning depend, ea, ®nd must- always depend, tho moral health of society. If the Government, central or local," was in any true sense to bo sole capitalist—if it was not merely to take over railways and a few more semi-monopolistic industries, which was economically quite an open question—he should fear for tho freedom of Churches, trade unions, and organisations of minorities, all of which now controlled capital —not, it- was true, industrial capital, ret capital previously controlled lreely by individuals. (Hear, hear.)