CATHOLIC SOLUTION OF STRIKED

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 284, 11 October 1878, Page 9

CATHOLIC SOLUTION OF STRIKED

In reviewing the strike now going on at Anzin, in France, the Viscount v. cle Chauhnes very justly remarks :— A formidable strike has broken out in the coal region of Anzin, which threatens to spread. It docs not mamfest itself by any acts of violence, but up to the present time it has resisted every argument. This time the working miners have committpcl no excesses, but faithful to their word passed, they continue to desert their mines, and their women and children are in distress, begging for the necessaries of life. The authorities arc ordering battalion after battalion to the scene of action to prevent any dis" orclers that may break out, and redouble their paternal remonstrances to bring about the termination of a situation lamentable for the labourer and equally so to public industry and security. The first question that suggests itself to the impartial mind is this : " Where aoes the fault lie 1 " followed by the other no less important question : • VMiere is the remedy?" The number of hours' claimed by the labourers and the matter of wages are secondary questions, for the moment there is no accepted arbiter between the two belligerent powers to resolve this difficulty, the time will come when the workmen will retire to Mont Aventin, and when the operators, unwilling to keep their works in idleness, will surrender, by increasing the wages and reducing their prices. The thesis involves, therefore, a question of principle that capitalists have too much lost sight of, and which now asserts itself. Here it is in all its ugliness. The attitude ot the workmen is the result of the policy of secularisation. No sooner was God driven out of the workshop than the spirit of revolution came in. This satanic spirit whi&pered revolt to the workingman, selfishness to the employer. I begin by admitting that there are admirable exceptions in both camps. Yes. I know workingmen that command my respect and employers that excite my admiration. These admissions made. I come to my thesis. Since the deplorable Turgot campaign aggravated by the inefficient Olivier lair, the poor workingman has found himself despoiled of every succour, of every assistance, ibis is what they have been pleased to call the freedom of labour. VS hat grim irony ! As if a poor child abandoned in a desert could rejoice over the freedom it enjoys. This freedom of labour has been changed into a piece of egotism. The employer, released from the paternaldutics to which he was bound by the statutes of old abolished corporations, no longer thinks of anything beyond his own interests. To obtain them, he has mused day and night over the means of making his property yield as much as possible. His ledger with its J)r. and Cr., has become the code of his duties ; and new discoveries, by increasing industrial forces one hundred-fold, have, by enriching him, completely intoxicated him. One morning he woke up a very rich man, but a confirmed materialist. It was this day that begot the antagonism between capital and the labourer. This latter, sometimes wrecked, always ill-advised, unable to triumph over an adversary that can reduce him to hunger, heard within himself the mutteriugs of that implacable hatred that Catholic conscience alone can eraother,

Having no hope of succeeding individually, lie joined issues witla Ms companions in suffering. Out of this have grown those secret and sinister associations that are spreading over Europe, and that may, at a given signal, cover the land with bloodshed and ruin. The evil is great. Where is the remedy ? Has the government any in reserve ? Alas! No. It has ouly the bayonet, that represents the most lamentable of arguments. As to its remonstrances ; they are without authority. It is very simple : The governinrnt, the offspring of the revolt of September -I, 1870, cannot preach obedience. The only code of the democracy is the law of numbers. It is in the name of universal suffrage that the workingmen, more numerous than their employers formulate their claim. It would be useless to call to their minds the imperishable principles of the Decalogue, because there is not a clay on which a pernicious Press, inspired by an atheistic and materialistic middle class, does not repeat to them that there is no God. no conscience, no Decalogue ; that the only god known to modern society is called the liberties of 1789. This is what the liberty of labour brings us to. Whether men choose to see it or not, what is beyond all doubt is that this liberty of labour is a delusion to the workinginan. In 186-1, M. Kolb-Bernard so denounced it in the Chamber. In IS7S, the most recognised thinkers in the democratic ranks curse it. Moreover, in spite of M. Ducarre's lamentable conclusions, formulated hx the celebrated report of 1575, the workingman now thinks of nothing but unions. The aspirations, legitimate in their origin, have given rise to the Syndicates. These Syndicates, that the Government appears to have made up its mind to encourage, are the most formidable enemies of society. They are the most dangerous portions of the revolutionary army. The remedy, then, does not lie here, but in just the opposite. The remedy lies in the restoration of corporations of Christian workingmen, adapted to the advancement of industry and to the wants of modern society. By re-establishing this corporation you replace God at the head of society, you restore the conscience of of the employe and the employer. This revolution revives the most beautiful of theological virtues : Charity. Then the employer now becomes the servant of those who work in his shops. This devotion begets a reciprocity of feeling. The Christian workingman's family is reconstructed, revolt and selfishness are driven from the factory, because men do nob revolt against those they love, and when the workingman becomes attached to any one, nothing can over break his affection. This is what we see at * Val-des-Bois. at Tcil, at Vida-lon-les-Annonay, at Saint-Didier-la-Sauve, at Lille and elsewhere. Let us, then, organise Christian corporations if we would hear no more of strikes. — ! JV. Y. Freeman's Journal.