MR THOMAS CARLYLE ON MODERN WORK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 57, 30 May 1874, Page 9

MR THOMAS CARLYLE ON MODERN WORK.

PBOTESTANT HB~D CATHOLIC PBINCIPLE3 CONTRASTED.

The following unpublished letter from Mr Carlyle to Sir J. Whitworth, regarding the announcement made some time ago of tho latter's intention to supplement the savings of his workpeople by a bonus upon them was read htely by the Hon. and Roy. W. H. Lyttelton at a meeting of the Stourbridge School of Art :— "I have heard of your offer on behalf of the thrifty workpeople of Darley, and of the thankful acceptance of it by the district authorities of the place. # * * Would to Heaven that all or many of (lie captains of industry in England had a soul m them such as your?, and coulJ do as you have done, or could still further co-operate with you in works and plans to the like effect. The look of England is to me at this moment ;.bundantiy ominous. The question of capital and labor growing even more anarchic, insoluble altogetner by the notions liitl crto applied to it, is pretty certain to issue in petroleum one day, unless some other gospel than that of the ' dismal science ' come to illuminate it. Two things are pretty sure to me ; the first is that capital and labor never can or will agree together t'll they both first of all decide on doing their work faithfully throughout, and like mon of conscience and honor, whose highest aim is to behave like faithful citizens of I hi* universe, and obey the eternal commandment ot Almighty God, vvhc made them. The second thing is that a saducr object than cither that, of the coal strike or any considerable stiiko is the fact that, loo^ly speaking, all England has decided that the profitablest way is to do its works ill, slimly, swiftly, and mendaciously. What a contrast bct.vocn now and, cay, only 100 years ago ! At the latter date, or si ill mom conspicuously for ages before that, all England awoke to its work with an invocation to the Eternal Maker to bl 'ss them in their chy's labor

and help them to do it well. Now, all England, shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of competing laborers, awaken *s if with an unspoken but heartfelt, prayer to Beelzebub, ' O, help us, thou great lord of shoddy, adulteration, and malfeasance to do our work with a maximum of slimnesj, swiftness, profit, and mendacity; for the devil's sake. Amen.' "

This sarce Carlyle wrote a book some SO years ago, entitled " The Pa»t and Present," the drift of which was to show that modern Kn?land, though full of wealth and multifarious produce and supply for human want, was yet, bo far as the industrious classes were concerned, actually " dying of inanition." Some two millions, he says, Bit in workhouses- poor-law prisons — or have " out-door relief" flung over the wall to them, the workhouse Bastile being full to bursting. In thrifty Scotland itself, he adds, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, in dark lanes hidden from all but the eye of God and the minister of God, there are scenes of woe and destitution and desolation such as one may hope the sun never saw before. These things are not exceptional, but have reference to " the common state." Such is the model Protesiant country in Christendom, — the one in which the blessed fruits of Lutner and Knox's labors are said to be best seen. If our social system in New Zealand is to be based on the Protestant English model, we may expect to find that similar painful results will ensue. Great wealth, extensive landed property among the few ; destitution, war and desolation among the masses. This system has already begun among us. So long as millions cf publio money are being spent on .railway and other public works, the evil may be kept within moderate bounds, but after lavish outlay stops, then we shall have crowded workhouses and other dismal accessories of Protestant * c progress and civilisation." Things indeed are coming to a crisis at home. The English industrial orders — the agriculturalists especially — are now learning the secret of their power, and how to use it wisely. They are also beginning to see the real relation in which the Catholic Church stands to popular rights and public libeity. The Church does not teach men to redress wrongs by petroleum or pike and gun, but by moral and religious means, and constitutional organisations among the people. In Pagan and in Catholic countries, too, God knows there are rice and misery enough, but any vice or misery equal to what is seen in England and Scotland it appears the blessed sun never looks upon from his rising to his going down. This should teach modesty to our boastful Protestant Press — so ready to run down every thing Catholic. Carlyle believes that our Catholic ancestors centuries ago, if poorer then us, were far more virtuous and happy and free in many ways. Protestantism is a mistake.