Economic Effects of the So-Called Reformation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 42, 25 October 1923, Page 21

Economic Effects of the So-Called Reformation

---; v (By Archbishop Redwood.) p I presume that few intelligent readers of history are Unaware of the confiscation and plunder of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and of the guilds under Edward VI., or rather Edward’s .guardian, Somerset. But probably such readers have failed to . realise that these confiscations and plunders laid ,|;he foundation of modern Capitalism, that cancer, as Belloc . says, and curse of our day, • I say Capitalism, not capital. Capital is a good' and necessary thing; . Capitalism, the abuse of ( capital, is .-a, monstrous and a dire calamity. •: How did t)ris come about?, That is what in this paper I shall endeavor to unfold. In Henry s day, j what. constituted - most of the country’s wealth? It was the soil and its fixtures.- At that time about five million people were supported by the soil of England. As yet coal and industries, trade and commerce, were not the abundant' source of wealth which they are to-day. The soil was owned by a wealthy class, ; one-third by the lay-lords, and another by the Church. The latter was, of course, managed by Church establishments, such as cathedral chapters, communities of monks and nuns, educational institutions, etc. ’: !V " Now, the dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of Church property might have had some features of economic advantage, if the booty had remained in the Sole possession of the Crown. Enormous power, in politics and economy, would have accrued thereby to a central government. . But, as it happened, the Crown soon lost the ownership of the plundered Church property. , Monarchy proved no match for the large landowners. They grasped a.large share of the spoils for themselves. By adding their original possessions to those acquired by the plunder of the monasteries, they came to possess, shortly after the Reformation, more than half the soil of England and so, by this quasi-monopoly of the national wealth’ the new nobility became economic masters of the whole community. They could make most advantageous purchases They could squeeze the last shilling of rent from their tenants, once so leniently treated by their former clerical landlords, the monks. They contrived to fill the universities and the judiciary. Hitherto the Crown used to decide disputes between great and small, now' the great were the judges, and thus able to favor themselves in any question between rich and poor. . Soon they had bought up the bulk of the means of production. This new and ruthless competition swallowed up small and independent property, A i few generations sufficed to create the great landed estates and secure the possession of the great squires’ houses that cover the face of England to this day.- These are not—as some ignorant tourist might be induced to believe —the relics of feudalism. The 'old manorial houses of medieval England, where the Catholic gentry lived, only as the richest farmers among their fellows, have long since' ceased to be. Those grand country' houses and rural palaces, which the traveller now. admires, all date after the Reformation. . This body of new nobility was wealthy beyond all comparison to the older aristocracy of Catholic times. The members of the new' dissolution parliament had got their price for voting; and thus was laid the foundation of much of England’s noble lineage. Upon .the ruins of the ancient religion rose the power_and social prestige of the leading English families—the Cavendishes, the Howards, the Russells, the Cecils, etc. - - In the course of a century after the dissolution of the monasteries, the economic revolution was - accomplished. What became of the old traditions of Catholic England? . They were broken .memories. The new nobility, rivalling the Crown in wealth, dominated through their positions in Parliament which they controlled. In the government ■ of England the monarchy dwindled into insignificance, and

was replaced by a powerful oligarchy of wealth. The 17th century’s civil wars were but a struggle between the 'old' monarchy and the new, wealth'. „ When King .Charles I. lost ' his : head in- 1649, monarchy lost all real power. At the Restoration of monarchy the King was only a salaried puppet, which he remains to this day. ' A few wealthy families grasped the means of production, and economic power finally became the seat of political power. Ever since the reign of Charles 1., until the rise of the labor party in English political life, the families who monopolised tlfo wealth of England by robbing the Church in the 16th century, were, to all intents and , purposes, the Government of- England, her prime ministers, her judges, her higher educatives, her bishops, her admirals and generals. No doubt - Charles’ had f trouble with the Protestants and the Puritans, who suspected him because his wife was a Catholic. But with the Parliament the trouble was Very different. The landlords composed it and had their own grievances. During the two preceding reigns of Elizabeth and James 1., they had their own way. Accordingly they fiercely resented Charles’s’ attempts to curb their power. He asked the landlords to reside on their estates and not squander their time in . London. He set up a commission to “inquire touching depopulations and conversions of lands to pasture.” This evil was ruining rural life and pressing cruelly upon the poor inhabitants. Charles imposed heavy fines upon the delinquents. Sir Anthony Roper, for instance, was fined thirty thousand pounds for committing - depopulation. Charles also managed to make the weight of taxation fall heavily upon the traders and wealthy classes. So Parliament determined to put a stop to this line of action. By misdirection, as usual, they got the mob to believe that Charles desired a change in the national religion. “If it were not for the reiterated cry about religion, they would never be sure of keeping the people on their side.” ’ (Commentaries bn^h^Life^nd Beigrl of Charles 1., by Isaac Disraeli, pp. cl3o-l; vol. 1). Such were the means that enabled Parliament to secure the support of London, which was the centre of Puritanism, and played such a decisive part in the civil war. We all know the end. Charles was defeated and eventually beheaded. The landlords triumphed, and the Parliament rewarded the people for their support, by transferring to their shoulders the burden of taxation, which was taken off the land,- off the profits in trade, and put upon food. . Thus were laid the foundations of English so-called “liberty,” upon a firm and democratic basis, and taxation broadened. Since the defeat of Charles, no monarch or statesman has made any serious attempt to put a boundary to the depredations of landlordism and Capitalism. ■ ' . English Capitalism had fought the Crown and won. By the year-1700 more than half of England’s population were dispossessed of capital and land. Not half of England’s population owned the houses they lived in, or the soil they tilled. • p Yet, if half the population of England to-day owned house or land, how happy we should deem them I By 1700 half of England’s manhood were proletariat; and, in this our day, when ignorant: and hysteric fools scream and shriek of progress and democracy, nineteen-twentieths of England’s population are a dispossessed proletariat. And this, forsooth, after the world was made safe for democracy, and Lloyd George had promised legislation that would make old England a home worthy of heroes 1 ! How then! do men seriously call themselves conservatives-; and lovers of private property, the while they try to perpetuate this inhuman and unjust condition in any nation?! '• We have proved our thesis, , then, that it was the so-called' Reformation teaching in England, the dissolution of the monasteries, ’the confiscation of Church property, the robbery and destruction of the guilds;by Henry VIII., and his successors, which made England capitalist, and most of the world with her. < v :.. ‘ -:!v-