When disputes and misunderstandings arise, Christian Socialism favors arbitration as a peaceful way of settling differences, appealing to right and justice and intelligence, not to brute force and blind passion. Hence the development of the principles of international law and justice, the establishing of international courts of appeal and arbitration in matters of divided jurisdiction or conflict of interests is explicitly approved. Within the State, the principles of Christian Socialism demand that each person participate in governing, making government to become simply collective self-control through willing co-operation. In proper theories of government much progress has been made towards at least the partial adoption of "the rule of the people, by the people, for the people," though this maxim is disregarded for earlier tyrannical or paternal theories of government wherever women are debarred from taking their share in the duty of directing and controlling the laws governing all and affecting all, not only men but also women. The reason for still excluding children is simply due to the fact of their immaturity.
It is in the field of industry and commerce that the greatest reconstruction will need to be made, for after having struggled so long to secure the freedom of the individual when it becomes clearly recognized that the only freedom that is even partially secured is the negative one of being left alone and that positive freedom of efficient action is lacking, there is bound to be a new direction to the constant efforts of civilization to secure the good of its component members. When aggregations, companies, corporations, trusts, etc., become an "imperium in imperio," turning the powerful engine of combination into the work of consolidating selfish aggrandizement and rendering impossible the development of a normal and healthy life among the great masses of the unorganized, the lesson taught by the power of organization is likely to be learned by the masses, and this will point to the attempt to secure the control for the co-operative community of all those great fundamental factors that are sometimes called natural monopolies, and the old regime that allowed these to be used as toll houses on the highway of progress to levy tribute to private monopoly and leading to the formation of a class of idle rich on the one hand and of idle poor on the other, will require most radical reconstruction in the interests of mankind.
As Christian Socialism has no simple formula to solve all the manifold and complex economic difficulties, it must go slowly, cautiously and experimentally. As it sympathizes with both the individualist and the collectivist in certain respects in each case, it may seem to favor opposing policies, but perhaps it is a case of walking forward by first moving up the left foot, then the right foot.
Where competition is found by experience to be both feasibly and advantageous, Christian Socialism will strive to secure real competition and so will assist in removing any device tariff or tax that favors one and penalizes the other. On the other hand, where monopolistic control is unavoidable or economically advantageous, it will strive to have such monopolistic enterprize strictly supervised and controlled by government or where it is practicable owned and operated by the community through its government, central or local.
Christian Socialism stands unambiguously and clearly for the sanctity and preservation of the family as a fundamental social unit more significant than the disconnected individuals in whose interests much legislation has been made bearing heavily on the family and favoring unduly those who have selfishly preferred to stand alone. As the perpetuation of the race is one of the most obvious and outstanding of the purposes of the family, marriage will need to be safeguarded still more with this in view, that is to the securing of fit and proper persons as parents through the guardianship, complete supervision and restraint of the unquestionably unfit. Nevertheless, Christian Socialism could scarcely be expected to endorse some of the wild and even shockingly cruel and barbarous proposals of the eugenic group.
The child is the special ward and care of Christian Socialism, and here all the earlier paternalism of primitive Christianity may still find beneficent scope. The child should be protected, nurtured and cared for, and trained in such a manner as to prepare for the most efficient and noble service at maturity. In the child we see embodied our hope for the future, hence as the most promising road to the fulfillment of the dreams of all social reformers and idealists we must eventually learn to concentrate our efforts on the child. How can the child be trained so as to develop most fully his latent aptitudes and abilities so as to be capable on the one hand of reaching his own greatest realization and on the other hand contributing most to the good of the race? Surely we should all aim to secure for each and every child the fullest development of all his powers, physical, mental, moral-religious, and the moral-religious most of all if we are to secure that altruistic character, that unselfish disposition without which all plans, schemes and programs must necessarily end in failure.
Fleming, William Hansell. (Lecturer, Author and Editor.)
If by Socialism you mean that the individual in asserting and demanding his rights should consider and grant equal rights to all others in the community, then I am in favor of Socialism.