growing weak, and it has been found necessary to invent in its stead a complicated system of taxation and violence, which is working the ruin of almost every State, and leaves no room for free will and individual option.

Lassalle's productive associations are of a certainty the surest, most equitable, and most efficacious means of easing the workman's condition, while rendering it less insecure. But it is vain to hope, as did Huber, that the capital necessary to found these associations can be collected among the workmen, who, being subject to the iron law of wages, only earn what is strictly necessary for their daily sustenance. Their savings are so scanty and inadequate as to be only sufficient for the foundation of associations on a small scale, and of no practical utility compared to the extent of the evil they are intended to remedy. To have recourse to the State would indicate a want of confidence in individual initiative. The co-operative associations of production ought to be promoted by the Church with means supplied by voluntary contribution, thus appealing to the sentiment of Christian duty, which can never fail. In other times the Church beheld the nobles, animated by religious ardour, found and endow monasteries; why may she not hope to see, at the present day, the development of productive associations through the contributions of the faithful?

"May God in His goodness," cries the great Archbishop, "quickly raise up men who will sow the fruitful idea of the associations of production in the soil of Christianity, that it may there prosper for the good of the labouring classes!"1

Throughout his book Monsignor Von Ketteler employs the same phrases, the same ideas, and frequently the same words as Lassalle, whose demolishing criticism of our present industrial system he fully accepts. Even in his schemes for reconstruction he frequently agrees with the Jewish reformer, and sees no better means of aiding the working classes than by the adoption of the productive associations. He also, like Lassalle, ridicules the self-help theory of Schulze-Delitzsch. However, while Lassalle demands a hundred millions of thalers 1 Ketteler, Die Arbeiterfrage, etc., pp. 144 and 145.

of the State to reform the present system of things, the Archbishop of Mayence, instead, hopes in the fruits of Christian charity.

Nor after the agitation provoked by Lassalle had subsided did Ketteler's desire of co-operating actively for the improvement of the condition of the labouring classes grow less. When, on the 25th July, 1869, he addressed a meeting of workmen at Liebefrauen, Monsignor Ketteler said: "The ungodliness of capital that exhausts the labourer as though he were a mere productive force, a machine, till it destroys him, must itself be destroyed. It is a crime against the working-class, which it degrades." And with energy worthy of Lassalle himself, he stigmatised the abuses of capital occurring in our present industrial system.1

However, although neither time nor disappointment could lessen his intense love for the people, and his faith in a future less unjust, less subject to bourgeois rule, the hopes he had conceived in 1864, when he published his book, Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum, gradually died out.

In 1864 Monsignor Ketteler was convinced that the productive associations were the only means of improving the workman's condition in our present social system. He agreed with Lassalle in placing no trust in the illusions of SchulzeDelitzsch and the efficacy of self-help. But the Jewish agitator maintained that these co-operative associations of production should be founded by means of a subsidy of a hundred millions of thalers from the State. Monsignor Ketteler, instead, hoped that the sum might be collected through the voluntary contributions of the faithful.

His faith in the generosity of the faithful, his Catholic optimism, was fated to die out gradually under the pressure of daily disappointments. Though he continued to write and to interest himself in the social question, he never took up his first scheme again. And when, later on, a real Catholic Socialist party was formed, which had recourse to State intervention, and would admit of no other means of salvation

1 This address of Monsignor Von Ketteler is reproduced in the Italian translation of his works, pp. 137-146; printed by Morlo.

than through the energetic action and financial aid of the Government, it may be that, though late in the day, the conviction came to him that in the labour question nothing can be more dangerous than to place excessive faith in the individual initiative of a class that must naturally remain conservative, because it is naturally forced to defend its own interests, nay, even its own privileges.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE GERMAN CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS AND THEIR ECONOMIC DOCTRINES.

Bishop Ketteler's Success-Monsignor Von Ketteler and Lassalle-The Meeting at Crefeld-The Fulda Congress-Die Christlich-Sociale Blätter-The Bishops and the Social Action of the Church-Social Programme of the German Bishops-Catholic and Ultramontane Socialism-Christopher Moufang-Economic Credo of the German Ultramontanes-The Catholics and "Self-help "-Co-operative Societies of Production Subsidised by the State-The Catholics and Manchestertum-The Christlich-Sociale Blätter Group-Abbé Hitze and the "Quintessence of the Social Question "-The Duty of the Church according to Hitze-Effects of Machinery-Compulsory Guilds-Hitze's Scheme for Social Organisation-The Zünftler PartyProposals of Hitze and Haberland-Hitze's Conclusions-HertlingRatzinger's Theories-Count Lösewitz and the Organisation of LabourCriticism of Modern Society-Slave Economics-Modern Economics-"Selfhelp" according to Lösewitz-Roman Law and its Baneful Influence-The Alsatian Clergy and the Social Question-Free Socialists and Interna tionalists-Winterer and his Theories-The Amberg Congress-State Socialists and Catholic Socialists-Points of Affinity-The Guild System and the Catholics-The Catholics and the Intrusion of State PowersOpponents of the Guild System-Monsignor Kopp-The Catholic Centre and its Social Policy.

M

CONSIGNOR VON KETTELER'S important publications had, as was natural, a wide diffusion. It was the first instance of a member of the nobility, archbishop of one of the most important dioceses in Germany, noted, moreover, for his absolutist tendencies and Christian fervour, having embraced Lassalle's theories, and having written against the modern economic system with the same severity, the same emphatic language as the Jew whom political men, with but few exceptions, considered a most violent and dangerous revolutionary.

However, even before Monsignor Von Ketteler's remark

able book appeared, a large portion of the German Catholic clergy already shared Lassalle's views, openly professing themselves in favour of the Jewish agitator.

When the Countess Von Hatzfield addressed herself to Monsignor Ketteler, begging him to use his influence on behalf of Lassalle, who was then striving to remove the obstacles to his union with Helena Von Dönniges, on whose account he was finally killed in a duel, the Archbishop of Mayence received her with the utmost cordiality. She had also the satisfaction of hearing the illustrious prelate speak of Lassalle in terms of sympathy and admiration as a man worthy of the highest esteem.1

And even when Lassalle, the democratic leader, mortally wounded in a duel fought on account of a faithless woman, just like the hero of any vulgar love story, expired in the greatest pain after three days' suffering, the German clergy received his remains in triumph. The Countess Von Hatzfield, who was devoted to his memory, had decided to have the great agitator's corpse embalmed and exposed to view in a public hall, but the Government, fearing some popular demonstration, forbade the carrying out of her plan, and Lassalle was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Breslau, with this simple epitaph: "Here lie the mortal remains of Ferdinand Lassalle, thinker and fighter". And notwithstanding the fact of his having been a materialist and a Jewish revolutionary, killed, moreover, in a duel, the Catholic clergy, who bore him deep sympathy, and sincerely endorsed a large part of the views contained in his economic programme, rendered funeral honours to the remains of the great agitator, such as are solely reserved to the most illustrious of the faithful.2

Ketteler's ideas spread most rapidly among the Catholic clergy; nor is there any wonder that a great impression was produced by the example of one of the most eminent prelates of the German ecclesiastical hierarchy, the most noted for his large views and dauntless courage, upholding in the name of

1 See Cimone Weill-Schott, La vita e le opere di Ferdinando Lassalle P. 134, Milano, 1889.

Vide C. Weill-Schott, ibid., p. 143.