It is a charge which we frequently bring against the enemy in these days, a charge only too well founded, that they are expert in everything except understanding human nature. The same may be said of those who were concerned in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. The growing wealth of the country which should have united masters and men in a truer comradeship, and a richer life, achieved results which were precisely the opposite. It developed a greed of cash which we have not yet shaken off, and money was accumulated in the pockets of men who had had neither aptitude nor training in the art of spending it. The workers were reduced to a state not far removed from a salaried slavery, and the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" was perhaps more acute than at any other time in our history. The causes of this were many and complex. Not the least of them was the fact that the masters of industry were captured by a false theory of economics according to which the fund which was available for the remuneration of labour could not at any given time be greater or less than it was. Human agency could not increase its volume, it could only vary its distribution. And further, as every man has the right to sell his labour for what he can obtain for it, any interference between the recipients was held to be unjust.
"That theory," as Mr Hammond has told us, "became supreme in economics, and the whole movement for trade-union organisation had to fight its way against this solid superstition[21]."
The doctrine of free labour achieved a wonderful popularity; but then, as the writer I have just quoted reminds us: "Free labour had not Adam Smith's meaning: it meant the freedom of the employer to take what labour he wanted, at the price he chose and under the conditions he thought proper[22]."
More and more therefore the employers and the workers drifted apart, and the supreme misfortune was that the one power which might have drawn them together was itself in a state of semi-paralysis in regard to the corporate responsibility of the community. That power was religion. There were times, as I shall endeavour to point out later, when Christianity was able to produce an atmosphere of comradeship stronger than the differences of class. But to the very great loss of both country and Church this was not one of them.
At the moment when the corporate message of the Church was needed, it was looking the other way, and concentrating its thought on the individual. The Reformation was in large measure a revolt from the imperial to the personal conception of religion. I do not deny that this revolt was necessary and beneficial. But the reaction from the corporate aspect of Christianity went too far. When this reaction was further reinforced by the Puritan movement, which with all its strength and its fine austerity fastened its attention on the minutiae of personal conduct, and left the community as such almost out of sight, it is not surprising to find that religion at the end of the 18th, and through a large part of the 19th century, failed to produce just that sense of brotherhood which would have mitigated the whole situation and prevented much of the practical paganism which I have described.
Even the great revival connected with the name of John Wesley brought all its fire to bear on the conversion of the man, when the social unit which was most in need of that conversion was the community. The result of all this was that, partly owing to ignorance, partly owing to prejudice, partly owing to the misreading of the New Testament, the messengers of religion had no message of corporate responsibility for nation or class. There was no one to lift aloft the torch of human brotherhood over the dark and gloomy landscape of English life. So far from that, the people who figured large in religion were convinced quite honestly that the division of classes was a heaven sent order, with which it would be impious to interfere, and further that the main message of religion to the people at large was an authoritative injunction to good behaviour, and patient resignation to the circumstances in which Providence had placed them. The notion that the organisation of Society, particularly on its industrial side, was wholly inconsistent with the ideals of the New Testament never so much as entered their heads, and any suggestion to this effect would have been regarded not merely as revolutionary but sacrilegious.
I have ventured on this very rough description of class distinctions, before our modern days, because it is through the study of our forefathers' mistakes and a truer understanding of our forefathers' inspirations that we may hope to create a better world in the days that are coming.
II
ATTEMPTS AT SOCIAL UNITY
Let me ask your attention now to a few of the attempts which have been made to create a deeper social unity.