“A Soul like a Walnut and a Mind like a Rag-bag”

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 291, 4 September 1926, Page 15

“A Soul like a Walnut and a Mind like a Rag-bag”

Sir Josiah Stamp on “The Christian Ethic as an Economic Factor” “Trie underlying principles of brotherhood, of unselfishness, of loving one’s neighbour as ,oo«seN» remain. They can be re-interpreted in new forms. How far are these new forms consistent with what we regard as the essentals of modern life ? There is a tacit assumption m many minds that the world would be better in a vague economic sense, as well as spiritually, if these principles prevailed. ... The low economic level is thought to be due to the lack of Christian principle. I have noticed that the fervent and convinced statement on the platform that if only a spirit of universal brotherhood prevailed the problems of men would all be solved never fails to raise-.audible and enthusiastic assent. But such a statement is not merely woefully wrong in its emphasis; it is also mischievous, because it dopes men’s minds till they cannot see what action is really necessary, still less rise to action. bir josian Stamp, D.Sc.

GRAVE responsibility rests upon tlie one who is first called upon A and has to begin this work,” said Sir Josiah Stamp, D.Sc., in the first Beckly Lecture, delivered at York recently. With great courage Sir Josiah Stamp took for his topic, “The Christian Ethic as an Economic Factor,” and those people (remarks “Public Opinion”), who merely preach goodwill and neglect good work and ignore the “inevitable” economic facts of life—and there are many such —will do well to read the lecturer’s forcible and pointed' warning. A section of the introduction appears above, and Sir Josiah Stamp—who gave the lecture at the Wesleyan Conference—went on to say:— “I confess to a feeling of irritation when I hear the glib statement, made from the platform or pulpit, which I know from personal experience to be so wide of the mark; and it deepens to despair when I see the easy acquiescence and approval with which it is received. When I reflect upon the nature of the problems that bring misery and suffering in the world, and the silent, hard-working, self-denying souls who are trying to solve them, I think such talk is ungrateful to the point of unchristian hecdlessness. “The ravages and ills of cancer and consumption, the problems of ability and skill set at naught by the derangement of a distant market, the vagaries of the foreign exchanges and depreciation of currency, with its impoverishment of many worthy people and all its other attendant ills, the population problem, with the standard of life—these, and a hundred others, look up and cry, not so much for warm hearts as for cool heads. “I often wonder what would happen if the preacher suddenly got his desires—a community of perfectly changed hearts, ready with all the Christian virtues of self-denial and altruism, face to face with these problems, and with his promised millennium to achieve forthwith. If the moral conversion of the race is likely to be a slow task, so equally is the spread of clear ideas. A soul like a walnut and a mind like a rag-bag are the two enemies of all millennia. “Exaggeration of the power of the moral element to overcome social evils is not a mere careless exercise which does no good and leaves no harm. It is positively vicious in at least three ways. First, it encourages the average man in mental indolence to which he is only too prone already, instead of rousing him to intellectual effort or to seeing that it is only by concerted mental effort not necessarily creative, but able to discriminate false and true issues when presented to him, that social problems can be solved; it drugs him into the belief that:— “'lust the art of being kind Is all this sad world needs.’ Most people think when they liave found someone to blame for a situation, that they have as good as explained it or solved it, and this passion for ‘fixing the blame’ universally takes the place of intelligent inquiry. “It cloaks the fact that even the best-hearted can conscientiously differ in an industrial and social riddle, and that the issues involved are frequently not moral only, but require a patient unravelling atid balancing of facts, with cautious exocriment. “The force of circumstances and the play of natural conditions are not enough reason for them. There must always be for them a human scapegoat; for *‘. . . every prospect pleases And only man is vile.’ “Second: Exaggeration of this kind leads to a deadly discouragement of all who arc engaged in working hard to solve problems with all their mental resources. A patient and life-long worker in some social and industrial problem hears the oracular statement that belittles all his work and virtually snubs it by making a facile claim to this moral short cut. . . . “It is when we come to the human motive that is brought into economic life that the ethical factor has its greatest possibility of influence. It is unnecessary for me to enlarge in great detail to-show that if men worked with

a will for the common service, and disregarded purely selfish interests in anxiety as to whether they had struck an exact bargain for their labour, and if those directing them were desirous of rewarding generously, and not giving the lowest remuneration they could ‘get away’ with, a solvent would be introduced into social affairs which would change the spirit of industry. If all joined in the common enterprise with the common idea of maximum combined service, and could leave the division of results to mutual trust and confidence, they might not abrogate economic principles and alter the economic mechanism, but they would at least give it lubricated bearings. “On analysis you will find that the central feature of nearly every indictment on ethical grounds is the conception that redistribution of wealth—a correction of the appalling contrast between extreme riches and poverty side by side—would provide a world of conspicuously fuller and more satisfactory life for the masses. This view creeps in everywhere to such an extent that it seems impossible to believe that there can be any mistake about it. “My own computations for post-war years of the effect of redistribution of spendable income have been given elsewhere. I may sum them up as follows:— “For 1919-20, if all individual income in excess of £250 per annum were put into a pool, and frorfi the pool was first taken the taxation being borne by individuals (out of the income so pooled), and also the amount necessary to the community for savings on the pre-war scale, and the balance left in the pod were shared out to all as an addition to spendable income, the addition would not exceed ss. per week to be added to each family for the first occasion, and probably less afterwards. ‘Some of you may have read that the effect of spreading the Alps, with all their majestic mass and volume, over the whole of Europe, would be to affect the level of Europe by a few inches only. Similarly, the effect of spreading such a mass as the Himalayas over Asia would be to raise the plains very slightly.’ “If I had my way, before anyone is allowed to go on a platform, and win applause by expounding our present discontents, attacking our system because by not following the Christian ethic we have no proper standard of life due to maldistribution of wealth. I would compel him, not only to spend three minutes with the supertax statistics, but also a week with a cold towel and the Census of Production reports. “Unequal distribution of wealth may be many of the bad things we say about it, especially in its effect upon the character of the enviers, and still more upon the envied, though it has beneath the surface some strong counteracting advantages for the envier which he is not usually capable of assessing. But if the Christian ethic cannot do any better than alter static distribution, it is bankrupt so far as its real effect on economic betterment is concerned. . . “When I read, in the latest work on this subject, ‘if a thing is morally wrong it can never be economically right,’ I feel the epigram, but I cannot find the meaning. If it means that where there are several economic possibilities, one will be j uster or more Christian than the others, and it cannot be morally right to rest content with anything less, then I understand it. But I would say whatever is economically right (».<?., inevitable) cannot be morally wrong. “For where there is no choice or avoidance there is no moral issue. “The less the human factor in the economic principle or situation, the less can it be morally wrong. You may say that the universe is not kind if you wish. But it is not merely natural limitation that may be fixed—it is also arithmetic that is non-moral, and an astonishing amount of economics is contained in the sentiment, ‘You cannot get more than a pint out of a pint pot, nor more than you have put into it.’ ... “The more ardent amongst you, full of reforming zeal, may possibly say that I have belittled the power and scope of the Christian ethic, have backed it into an obscure corner, so to speak, and dared it to meddle with the world’s affairs. I yield to none of you in my recognition that moral forces arc the only forces that finally count in human well-being and progress, without which any civilisation worth sharing must’ fall to irretrievable ruin. . . .