THE NEED OF SOCIAL STUDY.

New Zealand Tablet, 8 April 1920, Page 43

THE NEED OF SOCIAL STUDY.

Recommending the Catholic Social Guild in the Month, Father Sidney ±F. Smith, S.J., says that thero is great need of study among us in social matters, not because the subject is abstract or abstruse, but because of the conflicting theories not yet empirically tested, and the confusion that results when "arithmetic becomes tinged with 5 emotion." • :-f: : :< .-. & - .-• •■-,> ;; ,—, , ~.,-. « s Catholics, he says, have still another reason for studying the social, question carefully, because if they do not, they may be found condemning what may perhaps be jus-

tifiable, ;5 and thus bring. their faith*; into disrepute. "They should .-. not be I:; misled by s mere *| phrases 7' but |5 endeavor" '.\ijs get .at:; realities, and avoid, above all, the "fettering of liberty of speculation by undue dogmatism. The Archbishop ; of Liverpool recently ! uttered a v timely warning on this point. Speaking of economic theories} his Grace said: 'When the Church has not spoken there is always liberty: if Rome speaks, there is an end to the matter.' It is not for any cleric or layman, however zealous, to ; go ahead of the decisions of authority in moral matters. , So . long as there is social theory which is merely economic, and social arrangements which are merely conventional,', liberty of discussion and action is therein unfettered. There are Catholics, for instance, who hold that for , one man to employ another primarily for his own profit is, not intrinsically immoral, but so inevitably, connected with injustice as to be incapable of being rendered ~morally right. Production, they say, should be for welfare not for wealth, for use not for profit: the wage-system,must go the way of slavery and serfdom. To others the evil of the system seems accidental, and readily removable by admitting the wage-earners to partnership and a share in the profits. The difference is rather a question of : fact than of principle, and each may abound in his own sense."

In this country there is even greater need of social study than in England (comments the American Fortnightly Beview), because our ignorance of social problems is abysmal; yet, unfortunately, every systematic effort so far made to build up social study clubs, especially among the working people, where they are most needed, has met with failure. .".'•'/