The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1907. THE CHURCH AND THE LABORER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 43, 24 October 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1907. THE CHURCH AND THE LABORER

•gaC?Sv AST week there took place at the Anglican ?-MuP Synod in Auckland what— for lack of a vetUnilldr Jft ter nan ' e ~ Was called a c discussion 'on ' the rjpsSLi^ Church and Lahor '. Discussion implies /jM^z c ollision of sentiment, the clash of fact and tteT^ik argument on fact and argument, like vpLjri? the clash of spear upon shield -in €Jv-> olden warfare. But in the oratorical conference of last week there was scarcely, if at all, such a thing as the serious shock of debate. A number of speakers (most of them nonclergyiren) dealt with the subject in a dilettante and superficial way, and along lines which,

whether strictly parallel or not, failed to touch each other on a level crossing. There was no definition of the somewhat vague term' labor '. One of the speakers (Mr. Tilleb) 'dealt with the designation, ' The Church ', as the All Blacks dealt with' the flying football in ' muddy ground ;" the clerical orators Hew it as a toy balloon ; none of them defined it ; all' of them apparently treated it as a synonym for the sundry hundreds of independent ' organisations, great and little, old and new, that Christianity is divided into to-day, and which no more constitute one corporate body (' The Church ') than do the scattered nations of the world form one vast organisation called ' The Empire '. All the speakers were strangely reticent about the one- ancient Church that has been, of all the creeds of all ' times, the friend of the laborer and the artisan. A rare' opportunity for the serious treatment "of a great subject was thus allowed to go to waste by those most interested in placing the Christian side of the question im its true light before the gathered workers. And in its upshot, Ihe bout of oratory on ' the Church and Labor ' — despite tne earnestness and goodwill of the speakers— end'ecl Tn a sort of mental impasse, so fat as its ostensible object was concerned. * ' Honest labor \ says Dekker, ' bears a lovely face '. But when a large gatherings of laborers and artisans assembled to hear the relations of Christ's Church to the worker set' forth, it was, we think, a crying pity that such facts as ,the following were not placed before them by the Christian ministers who professed to deal with the theme : Lovely as is the face of honest manual labor, Tt b!ore the bland of slavery till the Catholic Church emancipated it. Even in the early days of persecution, when people worshipped in secret in the catacombs, sla,ve and master knelb side by side before the altar, equal in the sight of God and His Church. For her, there was no distinction of Jew or Greek, bond or free. History, too, recalls how the monks t»f the~ early Church ennobled and dignified manual labor, tamed the wild barbarian, and raised the foundations of modern Christian civilisation * among the virgin forests and swamps of Continental Europe. The Church, too, gave to the toiler a sweet, holy, and independent home-lffe; threw the highest ecclesiastical dignities open to his. children ; saved him" full many a time from the proud baron and the autocratic king or emperor who would ride rough-sliocl over him and reduce him again to the slavery out of which he had been 'slowly and painfully drawn. The Catholic" guilds of the middle ages were, perhaps, the best protective institutions ever formed for the benefit of labor. Under them, the artisan long had his eight-hours' day. He had, for his time, high wages —represented by the high purchasing power of the modest coins that he won by his toil. Here, for instance, is a verse from the Percy Reli.ques which describes the golden age of the- medieval worker in England :— 1 I'll -Cell you what, good fellow, joefore the friars went hence, • . A bushel of the best wheat" Was so.ld for fourteen pence ; And forty eggs a penny,' That were both good and new '. The artisan, too, was protected by <his* guild against arbitrary dismissal ; he was insured against the ordinary accidents of life ; he had the reasonable hope of one day becoming himself an employer ; he "was secure of his Saturday half-holiday, of his Sunday rest, and of many other festivals scattered through the" year ; . m and the fixed rents of ■ the time contributed greatly, to his prosperity. Even in the rough transition Saxon days, poor Gurth, the born thrall of Cedric was sure of his simple and abundant fare— even of his parings of pork. In later anS better Catholic days, the farm-labtorer had his inalienable rights of commonage and boscage— grass for his

cow and wood for his fire. There were, of course, great and petty tyrannies, manifold hardships and discontents, in Khgland, France, Germany, Denmark, etc., in the middle ages. Professor 'Ihorold Kogers, the great authority on labor questions in this period, says : ' But, on the whole, there were none of those extremes of poverty and wealth which have excited the astonishment of philanthropists, and are now exciting the indignation of workmen. The ' (middle) ' age, it is true, Sad its discontents, and these discontents were expressed forcibly and in a startling manner. But^of poverty which perished unheeded, of a willingness to do honest work, and a lack of opportunity, there was little or none '. In France the guilds lasted till' l7B9, when, lilce many mother ancient Catholic institutions, they were swept away by the Revolution. The golden age of the British laDorer and artisan extended from the close^ of the peasants' revolt in 13~81 to the evil days of Henry VIII. Writing of an Act passed in the second year of Henry VII., Professor Thorold Rogers says :— ' A schedule of wages is given which, considering the cheapness of the times, is exceedingly liberal. At no time in English history have The earnings of ..laborers, interpreted by their purchasing power, been so considerable as those which this "Act acknowledges \ We have more than once dealt With the degradation of labor, the re-introduction of slavery into England and Scotland, and the deep and bitter curse of pauperism, which followed the Reformation in Great Britain. The worker is even now only winning back many of the privileges 'which he enjoyed under the old Catholic guilds. .Now, as in the past, the Popes are the friends of Tine worker. In these later days no document has gone out from any Church organisation comparable .in subistance and importance with the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. 'On the Condition of Labor '. In 1905, ' Reynolcls's Newspaper ' summed up as follows- in an editorial article the attitude of the "worker towards the Church and the. Churches :—: — ' The working classes look with Uie greatest suspicion upon -all Churches. We except tlie Koman Catholics, the priests having so thoroughly identilied themselves with the lives and interests of the individual members of their particular faith. But in all other .of the great organized Churches the working classes believe tn"ey see ' instruments for tightening the bonds of economic subjection upon the common people.' Perhaps, after all, the history of the past and Ihe conditions of the present may sufficiently account for the dilettante toying of non-Catholic clergymen with ' the Church and Labor ' question in Auckland last week.