7 7 i i THE ETHICS OF LABOR 

By 
FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C. 

New York 
THE PAULIST PRESS 

401 West 59th Street 



COPYRIGHT, 1 9 2 2 , BY " T H E M I S S I O N A R Y SOCIETY OP 

S T . P A U L T H E A P O S T L E IN T H E S T A T E 

OF N E W Y O R K " 

DeacWSfed 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
B Y F A T H E R C U T H B E R T , O . S . F . C . 

!N considering the industrial restless-
ness of today, it is well to bear in 
mind that the question of wages no 
longer constitutes the fundamental 
problem of the Labor aspiration. 

What the working-class is claiming as its right 
and what it is restlessly seeking to achieve, is not 
merely nor primarily a just wage, but that its 
labor and the conditions of labor shall be an ex-
pression of human personality. The worker 
wants not merely to exist, but to live a human life 
and to find in his work the freedom to express and 
develop himself. A man may receive just and 
generous wages and yet be a mere tool or machine 
in the hands of his employer; a mere thing, in-
dustrially considered, and not a human being with 
personal interests clamoring to be recognized. 
The motive underlying the movement of organ-
ized Labor today is to obtain such recognition 
both for the personality of the worker and for 
his human interests. The organized workers now 
demand economic freedom as well as a just re-



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
numeration. As one writer puts it: "They want 
greater security as regards employment and better 
provision for their old age; the opportunity of 
taking a greater interest in their work; and more 
freedom as to the ordering of their own lives." 1 
Nothing less than that will satisfy the more intel-
ligent worker; and we may all add, nothing less 
will satisfy the awakened Christian conscience. 

It need hardly be said that the Catholic Church 
in its ethical teaching is at one with this new de-
velopment in the Labor movement, with its claim 
that every man shall have as his natural due the 
status of a free agent in the disposal of his labor 
and the ordering of his own life, and in asserting 
the principle that the ultimate object of labor is 
not the acquisition of wages, but the development 
of human life and character. Thus, for instance, 
Leo XIII., in his Encyclical, Rerum novarum, on 
the condition of the working class, declares: "If 
the owners of property should be made secure, 
the workingman in like manner has property and 
belongings in respect to which he should be pro-
tected; and foremost of all, his soul and mind. 
. . . No man may with impunity outrage that 
human dignity which God Himself treats with 
reverence, nor stand in the way of that higher 

l H. Sanderson Furniss , in The Industrial Outlook (London, 1917), 
Introductory, p. 16. 

4 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
life which is the preparation of the eternal life of 
heaven. Nay, more; no man has in this matter 
power over himself. To consent to any treatment 
which is calculated to defeat the end and purpose 
of his being is beyond his right; he" cannot give up 
his soul to servitude; for it is not man's own rights 
which are here in question, but the rights of God, 
the most sacred and inviolable of rights." 2 Hence, 
the Pope continues: "It is neither just nor human 
so to grind men down with excessive labor as to 
stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies." 3 
Further, having regard to the same, principle, he 
lays down that the employer who exploits the 
necessity of the worker, to enforce an insufficient 
wage or inhuman conditions of labor, infringes 
the "dictates of natural justice (which is) more 
imperious and ancient than any bargain between 
man and man." 4 And he suggests that "in these 
and similar questions, such as, for example, the 
hours of labor in different trades, the sanitary 
precautions to be observed in factories and work-
shops," etc., society or boards either of the 
workers themselves or of employers and em-
ployed should be formed "to safeguard the in-
terests of the wage-earners"—an anticipation of 
that demand for a share in the control of labor, 
1 9 1 2 ) S e e ^203^204 P e ° p l e ( C a t h o l i c Tru th Society. E d i t , 

3 Ibid,, p. 204. . i Ibid., p . 207. 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
which is now generally adopted by Labor organ-
izers. 

Throughout, the keynote of the Encyclical is the 
principle that conditions of labor shall be made 
more human and less servile, and for that reason 
that the worker be placed in a condition of greater 
economic freedom both as regards his security 
against want and the conditions of his labor. The 
worker is to be regarded as a human agent and 
not a mere tool; and as one who has the right 
by means of his labor to achieve a wholesome 
human existence, since, as the Pope says, it is 
only by his labor that he can preserve and de-
velop himself. His necessity gives him the righf 
to such conditions of labor as will enable him to 
achieve a complete human existence. Moreover, 
the same necessity demands that he should claim 
this right; 5 since, as the Pope says, "a man cannot 
give up his soul to servitude." Yet that is just 
what he was required to do under the economic 
system hitherto prevalent in modern industry. 
Nor is he relieved of that servitude merely by re-
ceiving a higher wage, he simply sells his soul at 
a higher rate, unless the essential conditions of 
servitude are rbolished. To continue, to blunt his 
mind and soul by excessive bodily labor, to go 
through the continuous monotony of a machine-

6 Ibid., p . 206. 
6 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
existence, to be perpetually harassed by the in-
security of labor dependent on the arbitrary will 
of an employer; to have to work in circumstances 
degrading to body and soul—under such condi-
tions labor- cannot but be demoralizing, however 
high the rate of wage might be. 

The new conscious aim in Labor organization, 
which puts human personality in the foreground 
and explicitly regards wages and material advan-
tages as mere means to an end, has undoubtedly a 
high er human and ethical quality than was found 
in the purely materialistic schools of economics: 
and for that reason deserves the sympathetic at-
tention of all Catholics. 

The fact that this new purpose on the part of 
the Labor Organizations is associated among cer-
tain sections with a policy of expropriation, 
hardly distinguished, if at all, from confiscation of 
the capitalist's property, must not blind us to the 
justice of the main purpose itself; nor is it help-
ful to the cause of the Catholic Church to regard 
merely the extravagances and more violently revo-
lutionary forms of the movement and to ignore 
the saner teaching of those who regard an eco-
nomic revolution as inevitable, but believe that, 
with reasonableness on all sides, a just and peace-
ful solution of the problem is possible. That the 
economic system must be radically changed in 

7 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
many ways, few will be found to'doubt, who have 
given any serious attention to the subject. Cap-
italism in the forms in which it has hitherto dom-
inated the industrial world, is bound sooner or 
later to give way before the growing unity and 
consciousness of power among the workers; just 
as in the latter Middle Ages, feudalism had to 
give way before the growing power of the com-
mercial class. 

The only question today is whether this radical 
economic change can be brought about peacefully 
by a mutual recognition of reasonable claims on 
the part of the employer and the worker, or 
whether a violent solution is inevitable. If either 
party refuses to treat with the other in a spirit of 
reasonableness and with intent to recognize the 
fundamental principles of justice underlying the 
situation, then violent revolution, in the opinion of 
sane and impartial observers, will surely come: 
and unfortunately on both sides there are those 
who are prepared to stake their all upon a violent 
issue. If that issue is to be avoided, it is needful 
that all who wish for a peaceful solution should 
unite in a careful and sympathetic consideration 
of the ethical questions involved. For, after all, 
the problem as it presents itself today, is pri-
marily and ultimately an ethical problem. "It is 
not merely discontent as to wages, but dissatisfac-

8 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
tion with their lives as wage-earners, that lies at 
the heart of the trouble." 6 

Undoubtedly the question of wages is the first 
practical consideration, since a man must have 
sufficient to provide for his bodily sustenance, if 
he is to cultivate mind and soul: and as connected 
with wages, come proper housing and whatever 
is needful for a healthy bodily existence. But be-
yond a just wage, there are other conditions to 
which the worker has a rightful claim, if. he is to 
live a properly human life and not be degraded 
to the level of a mere tool or to a condition of 
servitude. As we have seen, these conditions are 
mainly three: security against unemployment, a 
larger control in the management of his work, 
and a greater liberty in the ordering of his own 
life. Ethically, his right to these conditions is 
undeniable, provided, of course, that he is capable 
of fulfilling the duties which go with the rights; 
since every right has a corresponding duty with 
which it is indissolubly connected in the sphere of 
morals. 

The first of these conditions, then, is security 
against unemployment. The ethical right to this 
security is derived from the fact that the worker's 
labor is a necessity. He must work in order to 

6 H. Sanderson Furniss , i n The Industrial Outlook, Introductory, 
p. 16. 9 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
live. In the words of Leo XIII.: "The preserva-
tion of life is the bounden duty of one and all, 
and to be wanting therein is a crime. It follows 
that each one has a right to procure what is re-
quired in order to live; and the poor can procure 
it in no other way than through work and wages." 7 
If this be so, it follows that every worker, de-
pendent on his work, has a certain right to em-
ployment and to security against unemployment. 
Employment is for him a necessity of life. It may 
be said, of course, that his moral claim is not so 
much to employment as to the means of living, 
and that, consequently, so long as he is otherwise 
provided for, for instance by charity, he has no 
claim to employment. That might be so if merely 
bodily subsistence had to be thought of: but in 
dealing with human life one has to consider a 
man's self-respect and the general well-being of 
society at large. 

No honest man willingly submits to be a drone 
in the community or to receive from others the 
wages of work whilst remaining unemployed, 
when he is capable of doing useful work. To 
force any man into a position in which his self-
respect suffers, is to degrade him. St. Paul's 
words: "If a man will not work neither let him 
eat," expresses at once a social obligation and a 

7 The Pope and the People, p . 207. 
10 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
proper sense of personal dignity. Every man, 
thus, has a right as well as a duty to some sort of 
useful employment: it is a condition of an honor-
able human existence. But in the case of the 
worker whose only honorable means of subsist-
ence depends upon marketable labor, the rightful 
claim to employment and security against unem-
ployment has a specific significance. But his eth-
ical right in this matter of security is further de-
rived from the fact that without a reasonable cer-
tainty of being able to maintain himself and those 
dependent on him, the anxiety about merely ma-
terial things, must take away his due liberty in the 
cultivation of his mental and spiritual interests. 
A normal healthy cultivation of mind and soul 
can with difficulty be achieved without a reason-
able security against material want. 

Indeed, there can be hardly any question as to 
the moral right underlying the worker's claim to 
security against unemployment. Less clear, per-
haps, is the determination as to the incidence of 
the obligation to provide such security. There 
are those who would put the entire obligation 
upon the State; others would share the obligation 
between the State and the employer. But to put 
the entire obligation on the State is to assume a 
sphere of activity and responsibility on the part 
of the State towards the individual, which log-

11 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
ically leads to a servile State. The. wider the re-
sponsibility taken over by the State in the order-
ing of the individual's life, the less individual 
liberty there will be. In a free community ethical 
responsibilities must fall in the first place upon 
the individuals concerned, and only secondarily 
upon the State as the protector of the rights of 
the community and of the freedom of individuals. 
Doubtless in a matter which affects the general 
well-being of the community so vitally as does the 
Labor problem, the State must necessarily inter-
vene very largely, especially during a transitional 
period such as the present. That necessity of 
State intervention, however, will be less in pro-
portion as employers of Labor regard security 
against unemployment not merely as a matter of 
national expediency, but as a principle of inher-
ent justice in the status of the worker which di-
rectly enters into the moral character of the con-
tract between employer and worker. 

The worker, dependent as he is upon his work, 
has a moral claim to security against unemploy-
ment, and that claim must enter into the contract 
between himself and his employer. When, for 
instance, a professional teacher demands "secur-
ity of tenure" as well as a fixed salary, the de-
mand is not merely arbitrary, but is based in a 
<rue sense of moral right. He may be forced by 

12 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
necessity to accept a position in a school which 
leaves him in constant danger of being arbitrarily 
dismissed to suit the convenience of the school 
manager, perhaps at a time when further employ-
ment may be difficult to obtain. But in accepting 
such a position through force of necessity, "he is 
made the victim of force and injustice," 8 just as 
truly as when he is forced to accept an unjust 
wage. Arbitrary dismissal, which takes into con-
sideration merely the convenience or advantage 
of the employer without consideration for the 
well-being of the worker, is thus a real injustice. 
We are, of course, assuming that the worker is 
fulfilling his part of the "national bargain" by 
honestly discharging the duties he has under-
taken; as otherwise he himself has broken his 
contract and has forfeited his claim upon the em-
ployer. Cases may indeed arise in which, through 
no fault of his own, the worker may be incapable 
of continuing in the service of the employer 
through a change of conditions which are of gen-
eral advantage, as well as to the employer's inter-
est : as for instance when new machinery or meth-
ods of higher scientific value are introduced into 
a manufactory. Yet in such cases there can be 
no doubt that the employer is under an obligation 
to do what he can to secure new employment to 

8 Cf. The Pope and the People, p. 207. 
13 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
the honest worker; he cannot, without a violation 
of justice, dismiss him with no regard for the 
future: just because in the worker he is dealing 
with a human life and not with a mere tool. 

But if this is true, then the worker has surely 
a right to take due measures that his just claim 
shall be safeguarded against the employer's ar-
bitrary decision and, if need be, to invoke the in-
tervention of the State. Whether the actual 
methods proposed by Trade Unions for enforcing 
this right are commendable or not, is another 
question. They have been accused of thinking too 
exclusively of the workers' rights and too little of 
their duties. If that be so, they will, in the long 
run, defeat their own ends. There is, however, 
evidence that amongst the leaders of the Labor 
propaganda, a keen sense of the workers' respons-
ibilities is manifesting itself, and that an increas-
ing insistence is being laid upon the workers' 
efficiency in labor and upon self-discipline. With-
out efficiency and self-discipline on the workers' 
part, it is felt that no real progress can be made 
towards the further achievement of the new 
Labor ideal: and this should go far towards bring-
ing about a peaceful understanding between the 
employers and employed. 

Here, however, we are concerned with the es-
sential claim itself that the worker should have 

' 14 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
security against unemployment, and on ethical 
grounds the claim cannot be denied. At the same 
time the duty of safeguarding the worker against 
unemployment does not rest with the employer 
alone.9 The worker himself has his coordinate 
share in the responsibility. Everyone will admit 
that no employer is obliged to keep in employ-
ment an idle or dishonest worker: nor can any 
individual employer be justly forced to employ 
or to retain in employment the inefficient who is 
incapable of earning his wage at least, when the 
incapability is not brought about by the em-
ployer's own act. These limitations of the em-
ployer's responsibility points to a corresponding 
duty on the part of the worker and of those upon 
whom the worker is naturally dependent. It is at 
once clear that if the worker has an ethical right 
to employment, he has a duty to fit himself for 
-employment and to do what in him lies to justify 
his claim to be employed. Not only must he be 
honest and willing to work: he must also do his 
part in fitting himself for the work demanded of 
him by the needs of the community. This is a 
duty he owes at once to himself and to the com-

9 We are not considering here the duty of the employer to pro-vide fo r those who have given good service and are incapacitated by age or sickness. Such provision is pa r t of the question of wages. Nor are we referr ing here to the accidental inefficiency of the worker, caused by some action of the employer, as when a change of method is introduced. In such a case, as a l ready noticed, a certain respons-ibi l i ty lies on the employer. 15 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
munity at large: he owes it to himself since work 
is an essential necessity in his life; he owes it to 
the community since otherwise he runs the risk of 
becoming a mere burden upon his fellow-men, and 
of fulfilling no useful part in the life of the com-
munity upon which he must ultimately fall back 
for his maintenance. 

This duty of fitting oneself for useful employ-
ment is the one, perhaps, which the worker has 
most consistently ignored, or concerning which 
he has been too frequently left in ignorance. The 
fault is not altogether his, nor primarily his; it 
lies chiefly in the apathy or thoughtlessness of 
those who are responsible for his education. 

Yet efficiency in labor is an integral element in 
the full moral claim to employment. No man 
who deliberately ignores his duty to fit himself 
for employment, can justly claim, on his own 
merits, security against unemployment; simply 
because he has not fulfilled his proper part as re-
gards that anterior dictate of justice upon which 
all particular bargaining depends for its ethical 
obligation. The State may indeed, in the public 
interest, intervene to give him employment; but 
in such a case he becomes a dependent on the 
State rather than a free worker. Liberty, it must 
be remembered, is essentially bound up with ca-
pacity and duty: economic freedom in the fullest 

1« 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
sense is for those who are capable and willing to 
do their part in the community's economic life. 

And here, it would seem, comes in one of the 
more abiding duties of the State in the matter of 
securing the freedom of the worker and that se-
curity against unemployment which is part of that 
freedom. Allowing that the moral obligation to-
wards efficiency of labor lies primarily with the 
individual and those immediately responsible for 
his early education, and, not least, to the Trade 
Unions which take the responsibility of enforcing 
his rights—allowing this, it yet remains for the 
State in the interest of the community at large, to 
give due opportunity for the worker's education 
and training, such as will fit him for his future 
work; and not only to give the opportunity, but to 
take such means as will best secure that the op-
portunity is not neglected. Further, it is the duty 
of the State to see that this security against un-
employment enters into the bargain between em-
ployers and employed, and is not jeopardized by 
merely arbitrary action of either employer or 
worker. Thus, for instance, when new processes 
or methods are introduced into any industry, the 
State should insist that the change be made so as 
to minimize the danger of the worker finding him-
self without employment as a consequence of the 
change. 

17 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
The proper action of the State is, however, lim-

ited. It cannot so control the conditions of indus-
try as to leave no personal freedom to either em-
ployer or worker in the control of labor; for that 
would cut at the very root of personal responsi-
bility and consequently of real personal liberty. 
But it can protect both employer and worker 
against the mere arbitrariness of physical or 
moral force, and it can also give opportunities 
which conduce to the fulfillment of moral obliga-
tions. The giving of these opportunities is indeed 
its most positive contribution to economic free-
dom, and more directly constructive than any re-
strictive or "police" intervention. 

Such action the worker and the community at 
large can justly claim from the State. Thus edu-
cation in the broadest sense, and such an educa-
tion as will best develop the capacity of the worker 
to earn his living, is the worker's most urgent 
claim upon the State, since it is intimately bound 
up with the whole claim of the worker to eco-
nomic freedom: without it the worker will always 
be in a servile condition either towards the indi-
vidual employer or the State, just because the 
uneducated and inefficient worker is unable to 
stand upon his own merits, and is forced to depend 
upon the bounty either of the individual employer 
or of the community at large. As we have said, 

18 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
security against unemployment may be guaran-
teed by the State even to the inefficient on grounds 
of public policy: yet it is well for the worker 
clearly to recognize that his indefeasible moral 
right to security is ultimately bound up with his 
personal capacity and efficiency. 

We come now to the second of the three claims 
put forward by the Labor Organizations : "a larger 
control in the management of his work." The 
term "larger, control" needs, perhaps, definition. 
To the Syndicalist, it signifiés the expropriation 
of the capitalist and the entire management of 
industry by the workers. The ordinary Trade 
Unionist demand has, however, been thus ex-
pressed by one of their representatives: "Would 
it not be pôssible for the employers of this coun-
try to agree to put their business on a new footing 
by admitting the workman to some participation, 
not in profits, but in control? We workmen do 
not ask that we should be admitted to any share 
in what is essentially the employer's own business 
^ t h a t is, in those matters which do not concern 
us directly in the industry or employment in which 
we may be engaged. But in the daily manage-
ment of the employment in which we spend our 
working lives, we feel that we, as workmen, have 
a right to a yoice—even an equal voice—with the 

19 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
management itself." 1 0 This seems to be the gen-
eral demand at the present moment; and it has 
already been accepted by some employers with 
some acknowledged measure of success. 

So far neither Syndicalism nor Guild-Socialism 
have secured the adherence of any large number 
of workers: and that for two reasons. The aver-
age worker has no wish to concern himself with 
what is outside the sphere of his labor itself. 
"They have no wish to be responsible for the pur-
chase of raw material, for the raising of capital, 
the marketing of produce," etc. 1 1 Moreover, the 
workingmen as a body are well aware that they 
have not the training which will fit them to dis-
charge the function in industry at present dis-
charged by the employer. This doeS not mean 
that the Syndicalist or Guild-Socialist ideals may 
not yet gain a larger support. Much will depend 
upon the general attitude of employers, whether 
Collectivism or Syndicalism and kindred systems 
will further draw to themselves the allegiance of 
the workers, as an escape from conditions against 
which they now revolt. As they stand at present, 
all these systems are ethically objectionable inas-
much as they unduly curtail personal liberty: 1 2 

10 Mr. Gosling, a t the Trade Union Congress, 1916, quoted in The Industrial Outlook, p. 398. 
11H. Sanderson Furnlss , in The Industrial Outlook, p. 17. 12 On this point see the Encyclical, Rerum novarum, in The Pope and the People, p. 189, et seq. 20 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
at the best they propose to substitute one form of 
servitude for another: and that doubtless is what 
the common sense of the majority of the workers 
is aware of. 

At the same time, however, whilst rejecting on 
ethical grounds the Socialist systems as generally 
propounded, there is no ethical reason why, under 
new economic conditions, the worker should not 
aim at becoming a part-owner in industry, pro-
vided that the transfer of ownership is brought 
about without injustice to others and that due 
regard is had to individual liberty. What is true 
of a wider division of property in land, as advo-
cated by Leo XIII., equally applies to a wider ex-
tension of property in industry. "Many excellent 
results," says the Pope, "will follow upon this; 
and first of all, property will certainly become 
more equitably divided. For the result of civil 
change and revolution has been to divide society 
into two widely differing castes. On the one side 
there is the party which holds power because it 
holds wealth; which has in its grasp the whole of 
labor and trade; which manipulates for its own 
benefit and its own purposes all the sources of 
supply, and which is even represented in the 
councils of the State itself. On the other side there 
is the needy and the powerless multitude, broken-
down and suffering, and ever ready for disturb-

21 



the ethics of labor 
ance. If working people can be encouraged to 
look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the 
consequence will be that the gulf between vast 
wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over 
and the respective classes will be brought nearer 
to each other. A further consequence will result 
in the greater abundance of the fruits of the earth. 
Men always work harder and more readily when 
they work on that which belongs to them. 
That such a spirit of willing labor would add to 
the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the 
community is self-evident. And a third advan-
tage would spring from this: men would cling to 
the country in which they were born; for no one 
would exchange his country for a foreign land if 
his own afforded him the means of living a decent 
and happy l i fe ."" The same economic and 
human results, we take it, would follow were the 
workers to be given some ownership in any indus-
try in which they are employed; and such owner-
ship would meet with the blessing of the Church, 
equally with ownership in land. 

But at present the vast body of workers are not 
claiming such ownership: what they do claim is 
a greater control over their labor itself or rather 
over the conditions under which they are required 

13 The Pope and the People, p . 208. 

22 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
to labor. 1 4 It may be pointed out that here again 
they have the approval and encouragement of 
Pope Leo XIII., when he says, speaking of the 
function of Labor. Associations: "Should it hap-
pen that either a master or a workman believe 
himself injured, nothing would be more desirable 
than a committee should be appointed, composed 
of reliable and capable members of the Associa-
tion, whose duty would be, conformably with the 
rules' of the Association, to settle the dispute." 
Already he had declared that the purpose of these 
Associations should be to help "each individual 
member to better his condition to the utmost in 
body, mind and property." 1 5 

Here we have in principle an acknowledgment 
of the right of the worker to a share in the control 
of the conditions which govern his labor. And 
the right flows from the same fundamental fact 
which in the mind of the Pope and of the Labor 
Organizations is the cardinal principle of eco-
nomic reform, that the worker is a human being 
and not a tool. As such he has a right to a certain 
control over his own activity, so far at least that 
his activity shall conduce to his proper welfare 

14 What is wanted is that the work people should have a greater opportunity of part icipat ing in the discussion about and ad jus tment of those par ts of indus t ry by which they are most affected (Whetley interim Report). 
The Pope and the People, pp. 214-216. 23 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
and not be a means of degrading him in body or 
mind. This applies not merely to the material 
conditions of his labor: it applies even more 
urgently to the mental and spiritual conditions. 
Even granting that the conditions which directly 
affect his bodily welfare—wages, sanitation, etc.— 
are what they should be, there is yet the further 
consideration of his mental and spiritual develop-
ment to which his labor should rightly conduce, 
One of the curses of labor under the modern in-
dustrial régime has been its tendency to stunt the 
mind and character of the worker; and this has 
been due not merely to overwork and an insuf-
ficient wage, but to the atmosphere of servitude, 
the dull monotony and the sense that the worker 
has no voice in the control of his labor. 

Thus, under the prevailing system, he is not 
consulted about matters which directly concern 
his convenience or comfort; it is not considered 
necessary to give him any reasonable explanation 
of the cause which renders expedient changes of 
routine or method which directly affect him. If 
new processes are adopted, the change is made 
with little or no consideration for the worker him-
self, though the worker may have given the best 
years of his life to building up the industry, and 
has thereby acquired a vested interest in the in-
dustry, in virtue of his labor, equally with the 

24 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
vested interest of the owner. Still less has thè 
worker been encouraged to develop any personal 
thought or initiative in his labor. Under such a 
system men naturally tend to become mere ma-
chines instead of intelligent, responsible beings: 
and with perfect justice they may refuse to con-
tinue in such servitude, provided they are willing 
to accept the responsibilities which their new free-
dom entails.1 6 For it may be well to repeat, in all 
cases it is true : the greater the freedom, the 
greater the moral responsibility, and there is no 
right without its corresponding duty. 

How far a greater control in the arrangement 
in the conditions of his labor, will tend to relieve 

| the monotony and mechanism of the industrial 
world, is a question difficult to answer. There 
are those who claim that the mechanical industry 
of the present day is radically soul-killing; that 
with the over-development of machinery and the 
narrow limitations imposed by specialist labor in 
the modern manufactory, no workman can be 
otherwise than part of the machinery itself, nor 
be other than a servile worker. Those who hold 
this view, plead for a revival of handcrafts and 

16 One is glad to know that in practice where this greater control 
has been granted, the result has usual ly been greater efficiency and 
orderliness. Much depends upon the spir i t in which it is granted. 
An employer who is sympathetic to the new system, will gain more 
f r o m it than one who is unsympathetic and so fa i l s to gain the 
confidence of the workers. 25 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
the simpler forms of labor. Be that as it may— 
and there is much to be said in favor of it-—it yet 
remains true that a greater control over the con-
ditions of his labor will give the worker a sense 
of greater freedom, and open out to him an op-
portunity of developing a greater sense of respons-
ibility in his work: so far it will create a more 
human atmosphere in industry. Very rightly the 
worker regards outside arbitration, except as an 
occasional necessity, with repugnance: it is but 
shifting to other shoulders the responsibility 
which he, equally with the employer, should take 
upon himself. That is the feeling of the more 
serious thinkers amongst the advocates of "greater 
control:" and it is a right moral feeling, if the 
worker is to be raised economically to the status 
of a human being. 

With this claim to greater control over the con-
ditions of labor goes the still wider claim that the 
workers should have "a larger freedom as to the 
ordering of their own lives." This claim is social 
rather than economic, though it is intimately 
bound up with economic conditions. What it sig-
nifies is that the worker shall be given the oppor-
tunities for the development of those human in-
terests which make for the fuller enjoyment of 
life; or in the current phrase, for "the expression 
of personality, individual and collective," not 

26 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
merely in the workshop, but in social life gener-
ally. With the majority of the workers this 
"larger liberty" is probably an indefinite quan-
tity: it expresses an opportunity of doing what 
they like with themselves outside the daily routine 
of their work: it is a more or less blind revolt 
against the feeling of servitude. But with the 
more thoughtful section of the labor class, how-
ever, it means a fuller enjoyment of family life, 
education in the true sense of the word, a wider 
extension of personal interests, a greater freedom 
for mental and spiritual betterment. All these 
things under the old economic régime have been 
made difficult for the worker; and who will say 
that he has not a right to them? 

The candid recognition of these rights will 
doubtless mean a radical change in the conditions 
of labor and, to some extent, a remodeling of the 
whole economic system. Wages will have to be 
based not upon the necessity of mere bodily sub-
sistence, but upon the right of the worker to thé 
enjoyment of a fuller human existence; the hours 
of paid employment will have to be restricted to 
allow leisure and opportunity for other interests. 
But further than that, the mental atmosphere in 
which employer and worker meet, will have to 
be radically changed. Employment will have to 
be no longer dominated by the idea of material 

27 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
profit—whether in the form of dividends or of 
wages—but by the idea of human welfare: and 
it is here that the real crux of the situation lies, 
for it means a conversion from the material out-
look on life to the ethical, and without this change 
there can be no hope of a peaceful solution of 
the difficulties involved in the new Labor de-
mands. 

Two things, it would seem, render a peaceful 
solution problematical. The one is the natural 
cupidity of men, fostered and intensified by the 
materialist social economy of the past three or 
four centuries, and especially intensified by the 
industrial system of the nineteenth century. The 
other is the blind acceptance of that system as a 
law of public life by the general body of Christian 
men and women, who, in their private personal 
affairs, are guided by high ethical ideals. This 
blind acquiescence on the part of otherwise high-
minded people, is, perhaps, the greater danger of 
the two: since it tends, in the eyes of those who 
are demanding a more ethical system, to identify 
the present materialist economy with the Chris-
tian life, and to throw a glamour of ethical re-
spectability over the recalcitrance of those who 
uphold that economy. That way lies religious and 
class warfare. What we shall all be wise to recog-
nize is that a fundamental change in the economic 
'v 28 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
and social system lies before us and is, in fact, 
already taking place: and if it is to be brought 
about without violence and a disruption of so-
ciety, it will only be by an unprejudiced and 
candid acknowledgment of what is right and just 
in the aspirations of the workers. 

Frequently enough, the claims put forward by 
this or that section of organized Labor, are as un-
ethical and materialist in outlook as are those of 
the employers who exploit labor for their own 
selfish ends. The worker is still, to a great extent, 
the child of the unethical and irreligious system 
against which he revolts: yet that must not blind 
us to what is his just right, and only as he becomes 
conscious 'of a willingness on the part of the em-
ployers and of the public generally, to consider 
his claims in the spirit of justice and equity, will 
he be effectually convinced that others have rights 
too. Until then he will stand in an attitude of sus-
picion and revolt. The present is a time for tak-
ing the larger view, which looks not to a selfish 
and narrow material advantage, but to that ethical 
value which determines the rights and wrongs of 
human life. And by none should this "larger 
view" be taken more deliberately and earnestly 
than by Catholics. 

We Catholics cannot admit—if we are true to 
the teaching of the Church—that economics must 

29 



THE ETHICS OF LABOR 
stand apart from ethics and religion: we cannot 
admit the materialistic character of industrial life. 
We must look to the moral and spiritual ends 
which alone justify any system which affects 
human lives. Too frequently Catholics, whether 
of the employing class or of the employed, are 
content to fall in with the ways of the world round 
about them without considering whether the view 
or the action they fall in with is in harmony with 
the Faith they profess. Were it not so, the 
Church today would be in a far stronger position 
as an influence in the world's industrial life, since 
so much in the "advanced" aspirations of the 
Labor Organizations finds its sanction in Catholic 
teaching, and is little more than a return towards 
Catholic ideals. 

3®