And now in 1884, after nearly seventy years of the most wonderful progress in all directions, John is still in the same mind-at his wits' end to know what ails him, for assuredly it cannot in this last year of grace be fairly laid to the door of "cursèd war and racking tax." "Why am I ruined? What in the world is the matter with me?" he pleads, and at intervals roars, to his most trusted advisers and most successful children. "Matter! Why, don't you see you've got too much cotton" replies one; "Too much tea and sugar," cries a second; and a third, "Too much corn;" while the most solemn and profound of the chorus answers with severe and assured front, "Too much labour. If you want ever to be the hearty chap you once were, you've got to bundle out about a third of your producers." În vain he turns on his Job's comforters with, " Why, bless my soul, didn't you tell me that all I wanted was wealth? And now what do you call cotton, and tea, and sugar, and corn, and labour? Ain't they wealth? Did any fellow ever pile them upas I have been doing these last fifty years, since Father Adam's time? And now you tell me I'm ruined because I've got too much of them all round!" To which obviously pertinent remonstrance John gets no coherent reply from any trusted adviser or successful child that I can hear of, though some kind of confident speech in quite a different key does no doubt arise from a considerable and growing section of those same producers whom he has been told to "bundle out." It is to this speech that I hope to call attention presently. Meantime, I would beg the candid reader to look quietly at the present situation all round, and if he does not see the absurdity of it to go on to the next article. Why, if Dean Swift were to appear amongst us again, and put it as it stands into a new chapter of "Gulliver's Travels," we should almost certainly cry out, "Bad art." The war of the Bigendians and Littleendians over which end of eggs should be cracked at breakfast, is fair satire and fair fun. There is scarcely a nation in the world which hasn't fought over such causes: for plots of earth "whereon the numbers could not try the cause, which were not tomb and continent enough to hold the slain;" but to give us a nation shouting "Ruin!" because it has got hold of too much of all the good things of the world is not satire, but extravagancenot fun, but foolery. Nevertheless into such an absurd position John undoubtedly does believe himself to have got; and, if we only grant the hypothesis that a nation can own too much good food, clothing, and shelter, while the vast majority of its members are still wretchedly clothed, fed, and lodged, into such a position John has actually got in these days. Let us look for a moment at the methods by which he has arrived there. For the first fifteen years of this century England was the only European country which was safe from invasion, just at the time when labour-saving processes were making a revolution in production. The start in the industrial race which was thus gained in those years lasted well on for a generation, during which this country, though suffering in many ways, more than held its own as the world's workshop. Then came a struggle for free trade, which resulted, forty years ago, in the supremacy of the middle class, and the throwing open of our markets to all who cared to come to them. I have no space to argue whether it was "propter hoc" or "post hoc," but at any rate, as a fact, material prosperity increased "by leaps and bounds," to use the Premier's famous phrase, from about that time, and, with fluctuations, has continued up to the present day; until it is beyond all doubt and question that the products of the whole earth-both natural and artificial-can be had to-day in England in greater abundance and on easier terms than anywhere else under the sun. And yet it is this triumphant middle class, our merchants and manufacturers, who, in spite or in consequence of their unexampled success, are so seriously menaced, and see ruin staring them in the face-who seem to be driven by some inexorable fate to go on in the struggle, which one would think must be rousing very serious thoughts and misgivings in the minds even of those of them who feel that, when the law of the survival of the fittest has worked itself out, they will surely be found amongst the survivors. Can it be an exhilarating or even an endurable thought when it comes to this naked issue, that their own prosperity is only to be secured at the cost of the ruin of their neighbours? But that is really what our modern English industrial system has practically come to in these days. But I am getting on too fast, and must return to the time of the free trade victory forty years ago. Side by side with the great and true principle of free trade stood the doctrine of "free competition " upon the banners and in the manifestoes of the triumphant host. The economists of the hour formulated that doctrine, and declared it to be "a law," that in the case of labour as of commodities generally, supply and demand must be left to themselves that supply can only be apportioned to demand by free competition. So thoroughly was this doctrine accepted, that for some years no protest of any serious kind was raised against it, either in the press or on the platform, by any section of the upper or middle classes. Only from the ranks of the labourers themselves was still heard the specious cry of "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," to which here and there, in the midlands and in the north, starving crowds marched now and then to the sack of bakers' shops and the destruction of machinery. They were met as 'people who know not the law" must be met by the police, the soldier when necessary, and the county gaol. Here and there, moreover, in those same years a silent and more effectual protest was beginning to be put on record. The Rochdale Pioneers, and other scattered associations, were founded by men who felt that, "law or no law," free competition was ruining them and their families, and must be resisted to the death. The year 1848 came upon this state of things, and with it, in England, the collapse of the Chartist movement and the disclosures of the condition of the London poor, side by side. "The Cry of Outcast London" has been startling and alarming comfortable England in the last year, but those who can remember the revelations of 1848-9 will know well enough that the worst lies well behind us. The conscience of the upper and middle classes was deeply touched, and philanthropic activity roused as it had never been before. Many movements which have done untold good got their first impulse then; but we are only concerned with that one which has now got the name (and one could wish it a better) of the co-operative movement. Some forty small societies, of which the Rochdale Pioneers was by far the best known and most successful, were already in existence in the northern and midland counties, unrecognised by law, and without any connection with each other. Every society stood alone, and was at the mercy of any member who was rogue enough to plunder it, and clever enough an easy matter-to keep clear of the criminal law. At this crisis, in 1849, a society was formed by Mr. Maurice, then chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, for the promotion of working men's associations. It worked in several ways (1) by establishing associations of tailors, shoemakers, and other trades in London; (2) by visiting and corresponding with the existing societies with a view to bringing them into union; and (3) by the publication of tracts and a newspaper for the spread of its principles. Men of all faiths were in its ranks, for although the founders were Christian Socialists," no questions were asked of anyone ready to take a share in the work. The work of the society throve in all directions; within little more than a year, there were some fifteen working associations in London, and the stores had increased to upwards of three hundred. Conferences had been held of delegates from the societies to deliberate on their common interests, and to seek means of more intimate connection and fellowship the forerunners of the Cooperative Congresses. A Central Co-operative Agency had been founded in London, the forerunner of the present Wholesale Society, by Mr. E. V. Neale, the General Secretary of the present Co-operative Union, on the principle that "trade, exchange, the distribution of goods, are trusts to be administered alike in the mutual interests of producers and consumers, not to be conducted as matters of speculation." Two Committees of the House of Commons on the Savings of the Working Classes had been induced to report in favour of such an alteration of the law of partnership as would sanction and facilitate trade combinations of working people. And, lastly, the publications of the society, the "Tracts on Christ an Socialism," and the Christian Socialist newspaper, had attracted attention in all quarters, and had drawn on the society the fire of almost the whole press, from the Edinburgh Review to the organ of the licensed victuallers. Upon the discussion which then arose I must dwell shortly, as at no time has the great controversy been so thoroughly threshed out, or the true meaning of what is known as the co-operative movement in England, been brought into such white light. And the position then taken has never been abandoned. Let us first look at the ground taken up by the Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations. Its object was stated in one sentence, "to diffuse the principles of cooperation as the practical application of Christianity to the purposes of trade and industry." This formula had been accepted, not only in London, but in the north, with entire assent when proposed by Mr. Maurice. Speaking to the first large gathering at benevolently "to make the Christian socialists understand themselves." "We agree at bottom," it was urged; "we are as much opposed as you to the abuses of competition, and that is all you really mean. You are educated men, and no more deny the laws of supply and demand than we do." Manchester, he illustrated it thus: "We admit the natural tendency," he said, "to warfare which exists amongst men, but believe that there is a power adequate to control those tendencies, and to enable them to work together as God intended them. We detest this competitive system because it is destroying the moral energy of our land. When the reply came again and again in We feel that either trade must be reformed, the most resolute and uncompromising form, or it will drag down everything to its own "No; it is not to the abuses of competition level. Either it must be raised up by being but to the principle that we are opposed," brought into connection with the highest and with some such additions as this of Mr. deepest moral principles, or those principles Ludlow: "Your competitive system is one will cease to be recognised amongst us." in which the labourer's hire is kept back by Such thoroughgoing and resolute defiance fraud; in which false weights and measures of current economic dogmas soon roused are the delight of the trader; in which it is the press of all shades. The first attacks made a fundamental axiom of economical were led by the Reasoner (which I sup-science that men should seek their own pose one would now call the organ of interests and do their own will instead of Agnosticism). "To mix up Christianity doing the will of their Father and loving with socialism," it argued, "is to shelter their neighbour as themselves; in which it is its errors from legitimate attack, and to the rule that the more a man asks the less take an unfair advantage of us." "By all shall be given him, the more he shall need means let them advocate Christianity, as the more advantage shall be taken of him," we do the rejection of it; but let them con- it was felt on all hands that the battle had fiue it to its proper place, and keep the become internecine, for the life itself. proselytism of the Church distinct from social and political reform." To which the editor of the Christian Socialist, Mr. Ludlow, now Registrar of Friendly Societies, replied, "We cannot confine our Christianity to our tracts or 'some proper place.' We started by saying this is the place for it; this trade and industry of yours have become corrupt and tyrannical simply because they have not been carried on in the love of God and man; this religion of ours has become effete and dead simply because it has confined itself to churches and chapels; because it has distinguished between places that were proper and places that were improper for it; because we have forgotten that our Lord was sent into the world, not that the Church, but that the world might be saved." Next came the religious newspapers, the Guardian and Record especially, who at first half patronisingly, but soon angrily and bitterly, attacked the movement, and especially Charles Kingsley-whose "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," and "Alton Locke," had thoroughly exasperated them-choosing him as the representative of the movement. In those early days "Parson Lot" was before all things a fighting man, and by his side were Mr. Ludlow, as trenchant if not as cloquent a writer, Mr. Neale, and other converts full of enthusiasm and faith in their great cause. For a time a semblance of good will was kept up in this section of the press, which tried The controversy was summed up by Mr. W. R. Greg in the Edinburgh Review. That powerful and generally cautious writer began by dividing the philanthropists into the "feelers" and the "thinkers," the Christian Socialists being amongst the former, and the latter being the economists, political economy being "benevolence under the guidance of science." To this preamble and its astounding assumption the reply was casy, that according to the highest authorities political economy was definable as "the science of the production and distribution of wealth," thereby narrowing its true etymological sense of "the law of the State's household," and altogether ignoring the men and women of whom the household was composed. The reviewer went on to denounce the notion of endeavouring to proportion the supply of labour to the demand, for "how could this be ascertained at all except by free competition, which would soon show which branch of labour had the most and which the fewest labourers in proportion to the demand for their produce? If any kind of labour did not pay, this was a sure sign that it would be abandoned." "Concert, as a substitute for competition in solving the problem of the wisest distribution of labour, must be either a chimera or a tyranny." To which it was replied that concert had already solved the problem in the case of the highest kind of labour, that of Government. "The Queen and Parliament sitting in com- well, and assured of victory. For the mittee settled the number of workmen re- moment the champions of free competition quired in each department of the public had the advantage. They could point to the service, from the Queen herself, the sole failure in infancy of almost all the productive workwoman required or allowed in the associations, and to the want of union amongst solemn labour of reigning, to the doorkeepers the stores, with a scornful "Solvitur ambuand messengers; and had the right of warn-lando, why, you can't even get a few traming off all others by such methods as chop- pery little grocers' shops to hang together ping off heads, in case any one should attempt in their business." "Solvitur ambulando, by to solve by competition the wisest distribution of the labour of reigning." That so far from competition causing branches of labour which were not remunerative to be abandoned, it | did precisely the reverse. The slop-workers were the worst-paid labourers, and so the men instead of abandoning it dragged in their wives and children, which was never done in the trades that paid good wages. I have indicated as shortly as I can the main lines of the controversy, which, as I have already said, was fought out at that time with singular thoroughness. In the end (1852), the combatants drew off, each side by this time knowing its own mind perfectly all means," was the confident retort; "your free competition can only bring you ever increasing stocks of unsaleable produce and unsaleable labour. Give us a generation, and then let us see who is on the right track." A generation has now passed. and for these thirty years each side has been working cut the problem on its own lines. Competition has never been so keen and so free in all departments of trade and industry controlled by the upper and middle classes. On the other hand the working class has been trying its experiment of controlling trade, by concert. What results the two systems have to show we hope to set side by side in a future number. SUNDAY READINGS. BY THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. JANUARY 4TH. Psalm xc. 2 Samuel xix. A HEBREW courtier once asked his sovereign, "How long have I to live?" Do not hastily condemn the question. On the one hand, self-respect does make, ought to make us, slow in prematurely confessing the loss of that will, freshness, and power which help to make vigorous manhood. It is at least an honourable error which tempts some men to persevere bravely, if hopelessly, with tasks which have grown beyond them. We can also appreciate and respect an old man's unwillingness to parade his tottering limbs before strangers-to intrude himself, where his presence could only be a burden to the selfish, a jest to the churlish, and a sort of shame to himself. A man of the world may of course put the question in a kind of callous inquisitiveness, quite aware that there is no chance of his getting an answer. And indeed it would be convenient in many ways. Money, pleasure, friendship, study-in fact the substance and disposition of all our worldly affairs would be vitally affected by the precise knowledge of the time of our end. As for religion, and who is commonly understood by our pre paration for eternity, the sting of our Lord's warning in the parable of the rich fool would disappear, could the answer come. The question may also be asked in an Epicurean indifference, or in a bitter and scornful unbelief. "How long have I to live?" "Oh, ever so long, and I shall enjoy myself while I may." "How long have I to live?" "Who cares, for no one will miss me? Indeed I am not sure that I much care myself. Perhaps the best thing that can happen to me may be to escape from a past full of mistakes, and a present seamed with anxieties, into a future about which no one can really prove anything, and which can hardly be worse than the condition in which I find myself now.” "How The question also may not unreasonably, and not quite irreligiously, be asked in a gentle sadness by hearts too manful and brave ever to put it into words: long have I to live?" "It cannot be long, it may be very short, and I am honestly sorry. Life seems to be more precious and beautiful and noble than it ever was. When I have just had enough of it to discover its value, I am told that I must go. Now that I can be of some real use, my opportunity is taken from me. When I have something to tell and to give the world to help it to be might seriously imperil, nor for our innocent. better, my lips must be sealed in the silence happiness, over which the certainty of the of the grave." How then should a Christian coming end would hover as a pall of ghastly ask it? First, he should put the question darkness. Let us make our life full, long, in a spirit of humility. "How long have calm, fruitful by the activities of love, coming I to live?" "Certainly not so long as I once to us day by day, as His providence sends had. What is gone I cannot recover. The them. We will not think of death, we will opportunities I have missed, the hours that think of Christ and of the glory of His I have wasted, the resources that I have kingdom. We will be sowing for the eternity, used for self, and not for God, the precious in which we are living already, though we souls that have claimed, or at least deserved may not understand it; and we will rehelp and sympathy from me and have not member that all true work, and spiritual received it these make me humble and self-discipline, and human charities, and holy reproachful. Nevertheless they must not worship shall accompany us as very part of depress me with melancholy, nor crush me our being, into that heaven, which we are into despair. Forgetting the things which are making for ourselves, as well as He, our behind, I will reach on to the things which Saviour, is preparing for us. We need not too are before. The shorter my time, the better much care for mortifying interruptions of use I must make of it." Then he should duty, for great tasks unfinished, for legacies put it in a spirit of soberness and good sense, of thought and action bequeathed to those by which I mean the faculty of appreciating that come after us; nor waste natural but the right proportion of things. Thou and useless regrets over the fact of being mortal. Ziba divide the land." It did not seem We have inherited the unfulfilled tasks of worth so much then, as once it had seemed. others; we must be ready to bequeath ours Certainly it was not worth fighting about. in turn. "One soweth and another reapeth." As life goes on, and the end approaches, we Only let us be careful to earn the joy of have tried and tasted many things in turn, harvest whether for sowing or reaping; and and found them out to be too often vanity it shall not disappoint us, for the servant and vexation of spirit. Certainly they cannot there as here shall be as his Lord, and his joy satisfy. Only in Christ is the secret of the as the Lord's joy. soul's rest. Then it is quite possible to put the question cheerfully, knowing what the answer must be, in the reason of things, though duty still being done fills life with a true dignity, and the love of children and friends gives it a tender joy. It is wonderful how sorrow, and pre-eminently the sorrow of bereavement, loosens the tightest cords that fasten our tents to the earth. We think of friends within the veil and we want to join them. So much is behind us of anguish and desolation that once cut us as with sharp knives, suddenly, and also lingeringly, that to go through it all again and again is more than we could quite make up our mind for, even if we had the chance. Our treasures are in heaven, and they are constantly multiplying. To heaven let us go. Thus let us feel, as we look up through the darkness to the face of our God, Who sitteth on the throne, and put this question to Him, as His children, who approach Him with the deep reverence of trustful love. The answer that will come back, gentle, clear, awful, yet soothing, shall be like this. It is not good for us to know the exact number of our days, nor of our neighbour's days. Neither good for our discipline, which that knowledge JANUARY 11TH. Psalm xcvii. Luke ix. 28-45. Holy Scripture often mentions clouds. Sometimes they have been an indication of the divine Presence. When Moses went out from the camp to the Tabernacle for communion with God a cloud rested on the Tabernacle. Occasionally they have accompanied the divine acceptance of something consecrated to God's service. When Solomon's Temple was dedicated a cloud filled the house, and the priests were unable to minister on account of the glory. On one occasion they were the heralds of a divine revelation. As Ezekiel mused by Chebar a cloud came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness about it. They have been used as the vehicle of a divine departure, and they are to be used in the pomp of a divine return. When the Lord ascended into heaven "a cloud received Him out of their sight." At His return for judgment "Behold, He cometh with clouds." We, too, have our clouds coming in the providence of God in this shape or in that, chilly and gloomy, often in sharp contrast with previous times of brightness and privilege, as inevitable in the order of the spiri |