The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2201, 27 May 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1870.

One of the first fruits of the Otago Institute, so far as it is intended to influence the public mind, is an essay or lecture by Mr Hawthorne, professedly on co-operation, but inferentially on the organisation of labor. Had it come from some debating society, or been spoken by a political agitator in the Octagon, it would have mattered little either for good or ill. Its facts would have been accepted as pointing to bene-

fits derivable from employing capital and labor judiciously and economically ; for in the success of co-operative stores are shown the advantage to a trading concern of having a sufficient number of customers to form a profitable connection, and that if no credit is given, a very small capital only is necessary to carry on a very large trade in a country like England, where there are depots of the articles required, and facilities for communication so that supplies can be obtained in the requisite small quantities. Abstract any one of these conditions, and the scheme must have failed. The wild and erratic utterances and pseudo-philanthropy contained in the lecture might have caused amusement, and the matter would have been no more thought of. Nor should we have considered it serious enough to render comment necessary, had the views of the Rector of the High School been confined to the members of the Institute ] but it is a different thing when they are published to the world in the columns of a daily paper. It is to be regretted that so unwise a step has been taken, for mischief is doubly mischievous when it is sanctioned by authority. Mr Hawthorne belongs to a school of theorists who condemn what they cannot understand. His chief aim appears to be to bring the science of political economy into contempt, and to set up an ideal system under which every man shall have enough to eat whether he works or not. He appears altogether to mistake the end and purpose of the science, when he condemns the writings of its professors on the ground that “ they have “ quietly ignored the human element “ in their calculations.” The science of political economy is neither more nor less than an exposition of the la ws by which human beings may the most beneficially, personally and socially, act upon matter for their mutual and individual benefit. We are aware that Fourier, Owen, and others held different notions on the subject from those clear-headed men, Adam Smith and his successors ; but common sense rejects their doctrines as unsuited to society. There can be no doubt as to their benevolence, and this much may be said of Mr Hawthorne, notwithstanding his doctrines exceed in extravagance anything we have before seen on the subject. The main error lies in a misconception of the claim that man without capital has upon man with capital. As a matter of duty to society, it is imperative that provision should be made against anyone dying of want; and we are glad to say wherever Englishmen are found, that principle is acted upon. But a more monstrous doctrine cannot be conceived than that enunciated by the Rector of the High School, when he says, “ Here then we have the prin- “ ciple laid down, that the workman “ who is willing to work, not merely “ who is fortunate enough to obtain “ work, has a right to receive full “ wages.” This is backed by assumed Scriptural authority. We feel it our duty to protest against wresting the doctrines of Holy Writ to purposes for which they were never intended. It is the duty of every man to re ml them reverentially and carefully, with reference to the manners and customs of the day, and to deduce from them precisely that spiritual instruction they were designed to convey, and no more. But Mr Hawthorne breaks through this wise rule of investigation, and assumes that the true doctrine of wages is to be found in the 20th Chapter of Matthew, in the parable of the “ householder,” who hired laborers to work in his vineyard. On reference, our readers will find that it is stated those who were hired at the eleventh hour received the same wages as those who worked the whole day. Now clearly this is put forth as an exceptional case, illustrative of the difference between spiritual and temporal rewards, and of the doctrine laid down in the preceding chapter, that “ many “ that are first shall be last; and the “ last shall be first.” As an inference from the parable, Mr Hawthorne’s doctrine is false as an economic maxim. Taking the householder to represent the capitalist, it clearly asserts his right to distribute his wealth as he pleases,, and to make what bargains he likes. The men who had worked all day are represented as stung by a sense of injustice, because they saw those who had come at eventide paid the same wages as they received. The householder does not base his excuse for this apparent injustice on the plea “ that “ they were willing and ready to work “ the whole daybut that he paid to the first the wages agreed upon, and that he gave the others an equal amount, not because they had earned it, but because it was lawful for him to do what lie would with his own • simply implying that they had no just claim upon him, but that he chose to give them that reward for the little work done. The manner in which the Rector has applied this parable is but another instance of the necessity of keeping purely religious teaching dis-

tinct from secular controversies. The simple intention of the Great Teacher appears to have been to shew that the early Christians, who would have to endure the scorn, neglect, and persecution of the world, would, according tn the nature of the case, receive as a reward “ the kingdom of heaven,” and that those who followed in their footsteps in after ages, when the profession of Christianity had become easy and pleasant, would reap a like reward. To travel beyond this plain inference is to go into the regions of superstition, and to justify the wild interpretations of Scripture by which the most erratic sects excuse their tenets. We feel it our duty to make this protest on public grounds against introducing the doctrines of Scripture in an attempt to establish theories which can and must be settled without their aid. It has a tendency to weaken Biblical authority, when those untrained to think find its teaching opposed by the . learned, to common sense and justice. Mr Hawthorne may quote Buskin or other visionaries without danger. Their doctrines arc ephemeral, and will soon pass away j but he should be cautious how ho deals with lessons in which interests are involved that lie beyond the limits of time. The idea that they lead to manifest social error is fraught with danger.