THE LABOUR PROBLEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17689, 29 July 1919, Page 8

THE LABOUR PROBLEM.

LECTURE BY THE IIEV. J. L. MORTIMER. NATIONAL GUILD SUGGESTED. Tho first of a series of three lectures on the National Guild idea as a, solution of the labour problem was delivered-in St. Peters Hall, C'ar.gill road, last night by the Rev. J. L. Mortimer. There was a large at.-' tendance, and Mr L. D. Ritoluo presided. Mr Mortimer said it was a, remarkable -sign of the times that ho should bo lecturing on this subject at the request of his church warden. It was a sign that peoplewere vitally conscious that things were vitally wrong, and that possibly the church might have something- to say upon the subject, some counsel to give, some oil to pour upon the troubled waters. With regard to the question of the relation of the churches to industrial matters two mistakes were common: (1), The mistake of those who turned with an angry snarl upon the church whon they found things were going terribly wrong, as though the church ought somehow to have prevented tho disaster, just as people snarled at God for allowing the war. They did not take into account the historical facts which had hampered the churoh in the delivery of her message. Of this he would dwell at great length in his second lecture. (21 They forgot or never knew of a principle laid down • by the Founder of tho Church—viz., that there should be a certain reserve in communicating religious knowledge and the laws of the Kingdom—they were not to cast pearls before swine. At times humanity became bestial in its outlook and philosophy, and then nothing could be dome, save the work of charity, to save it from tho worst effects of its bestiality. At some point of time in the near past tho directing and combats ing mind of our civilisation became bestial. It became obsessed by a demon, which it called economic law. By this philosophy it displaced holus bolus the Christian religion in every sort of connection with industrial and social life. It said to the Church: " You have no part or lot in this matter; no mystical qr spiritual lore can have any bearing upori\ life in this plane; it is bound by laws which we havo discovered, laws as fixed and certain as the laws of nature, and nothing that you can do or say will make any difference." Of this reign of economic law—altruistic rationalism applied to human life—it was enough to say with a modern economist: That it was tile greatest crime against the human reason ever committed in the history of the world; that it had been more disastrous to human ;ife in the past 100 years than all the wars during that period. He maintained that in the face of this false philosophy, held so determinedly by tho controlling minds of the age, the church could do little more than she had done— namely, to try to mitigate the horrors of an industrial and commercial system carried on by the same methods and with the samo results as wars. The first mistake we must avoid, was that of blaming the Church overmuch for not insisting on the application of the laws of the Kingdom of God at an earlier stage ; while wo must try to forgive those Christian people who had seemed- to proceed upon the principle that the rich must always be in the right. The second mistake we must avoid was that of supposing that in calling in the forces of Christianity we were conjuring up a power which made for peace—a fairy figure which, by waving a wand, would cause the proletariat lion to lie down with the capitalistic lamb. "If you," said the speaker, "call upon Christianity to reorganise human society upon the principles of divine justice, you call emphatically not for peace but a sword. After three generations of outrage; after 6eeing her children murdered before her eyes, in the name of science; after watching the world pass from her the one half stupefied and intoxicated by mammonism, the other desperate and spiritless through utter poverty, you would expect none of the easy phrases which comfort cruel men to fall from the lips- of the Church. Yon would not expect her whose vision was so keen to profess to be blind to the. fact of class war, and its essential and terrible necessity, or to murmur soothing sentiments about the interests of labour and capital teing identical." When the first heralds of the kingdom went out to challenge a' heathen world it was said of them: "These that, have turned the world upside down." So 'would it be to-day. What were the principles which the Church was bound to enunciate, and which she must applv by every possible means? (1) "I am come" that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly." Christ came to give man access to the fountain of abundant life, all the glory of human life at its highest, to life of fellowship.. the life of tho spiritin all its forms, tho life of honest and beautiful craftsmanship, the creative life. Tin's was the inheritance of every man iri Christ. "Thy kingdom come on earth" meant that we were to work and build until we had created a state wherein each had his opportunity of being his best. And this life was not for a favoured few, but for all there was one sanction of democracy, and one only—for them Christ died. Ho wished his hearers to remember this: The rationalist as he looked at the world was always undemocratic at best. He saw the obvious divisions of society. He saw that the masses appeared brutish, uncultured, and purposeless, and he tended to arrange the world accordingly. Brainy people like himself would form an aristocracy of intellect—a bureaucracy. The rest of mankind would be ticketed and labelled so that none should be forgotten in the food distribution, none should die of hunger ,dr lack of a job' of work, if it was only in a labour colony. There were plenty of creatures who called themselves socialists whoso ideal republic was often old-fashioned. But tho Christian was a born democrat. His only title to honour for himself was tho fact that Christ died for him, and that was an honour which ho shared with every man. What a mockery, said the speaker, was class or caste, in face of/ the supreme Christian fact': Finally, said the lecturer, there was one grave condition: Tho commonwealth could only be established among men if God roigned. It was tho Kingdom of God we asked. Who else could rule human society ? And the Saviour gave the answer: "Money. Ye cannot servo God and mammon." It was possible under an autocracy,, an aristocracy, a democracy; but it was not possible under a plutocracy; and tho civilised world, with all its varying forms of government was dominated by a plutocracy. Capitalism had worked out to its logical conclusion. Capitalism, which meant the ownership of the means of production by a section of the people, had become the control of the means of production by a few men. The destinies of the world, the livelihood of the multitude, were in the hands of men who cared for nothiii"save for the power which wealth could give. Christianity had in the past delivered whole peoples from tho bondage of a groat spiritual fear, which destroyed human happiness. It was almost impossible to exaggerate tho horror of great darkness which had disappeared as the Church had brought her light to nation after nation on the earth. The last and greatest darkness was that which weighed down the soul of those who wero once her own children, and no power in hell or earth had ever been so i::..:nt for actual evil in the 'world as was tho power of mammon to-day. You had. said the lecturer, the highest class in the community caring nothing for production, merely handling money, so that it gained them more and more control of the commonwealth. Beneath these commercial men,, manufacturers, were striving to gain the' platform- of finance, when alone tlupy were secure. , Beneath them the smaller men of commerce, industry, professional men, and so forth, striving after tho standard of luxury set by • those above them, toadying about their courts, because their livelihood depended upon them. Ixnvcst of all the proletariat, the dispossessed with no commodity to offer save their labour—men without stake in tho country, or security of life, wage-slaves, only fortunate if they could earn a living wage at tho cost- o"f toil which destroyed tine possibility of tho abundant life. There were 10,000,000 of these in Britain always on tho verge of starvation. Did they know what ° that meant? But after all the poverty of this class was fairly easy to deal with. We wore feeding the children in the schools 10 years ago. It only required an extension of the system of free food for the workloss and a. little fairly drastic reform in the matter of bousing—in fact, what they called "social reform "—and the most obvious blasphemies of our civilisation would disappear, but not tho deepest blasphemy against tho divine in man. That was a question of status, of security, of economic power. Where the spirit of God was there was liberty. Where the spirit of mammon was was slavery. These multitudes were sup. posed to be endowed with political freedom. Tt was a mockery. There could be no political freedom without economic freedom. That which tho Church- must demand for humanity was such security that men and women could follow their Lord's counsel: "Be not over-anxious for the morrow." He did not know fully what had been done to ameliorate the conditions of t'h'i working classes in the past few years, but that was wagery as he, the speaker, had Teen it. That was the man who created

tho wealth which others spent. Remember, too, flutt it was that man who created the value of the goods tlmt one bought. There was another aspect of tho question of tho status of the wage-earners upon which he wished to touch. Supposing him to have hired out his labour at a subsistence wage; ho was fortunate so far. He was now a. hand at work; hut at what work? Work over which lie had no control—in which he had no say. It degraded him lower and lower in the scale of life. He had no interest and no control over tlm fruit of his labour. In order that the whole system of rent, profits, and interest illicit be maintained, in order that Mammon's throne might- bo established, they must have tho wage system, which was 'not a. method of paying men, I ut a method of hiring labour. If they would overthrow mammon, if they were in earnest when they said there must be a real change, they must destroy the wage system. If they called for the Church's aid they should bave tho Christian opnmionwoalth; "but they could not serve God and mammon. What he meant by the destruction of the wage system was tho establishment of a. system whcTc. the worker no longer sold his labour aa best ho could. Ho can, and thenceforth lost all control over it or its fruits A system in which he gave the best that was in him, with control over his industry and its products in common with his fellow-workers; a system in which he had security of life and subsistence, whether well or ill, strong or weak, young or old; a. system which restored to craftsmanship its" ancient dignity and honour. Such a system was the national guild system. Briefly, tho trades or crufts_ unions were to form, themselves into national guilds, incorporating every kind and sort of labour in a particular industry, work, and administration. The guild was responsible for its members, for their regular payment, and for their industrial training. Tho was responsible for the conduct of tho particular industry over which it had full control, though it had not absolute ownership of machinery, land, etc., which belongs to the State or whole community, and was hired to the guild. Mr Mortimer, who was well received and attentively listened to, wns, at the conclusion of his lecture, nceorded a hearty vote of thanks, on tho motion of Mr EL It. Douglas.