The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-11
CARDINAL MANNING.
Socialism Tends to Centraiization--Evils of
Government Control of Labor.

Socialism Tends to OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES of
Government Control of Labor.
London Special to New York Herald.
Cardinal Manning has a long letter in the
ployed and socialism. When people interview
him he is not apt to talk thoughtfully he
writes. l send the most interesting OF the vie
of the English Catholic:
s'What, then, is socialism? 1t is vision of
society governed by the law Of nature only. I'M
der which the state is supreme, and therefore
really the only landlord and therefore the only
employer of labor. It is therefore the negation
of all progress and Of all social laws which wis
dom, justice and experience have sanctioned
and matured. 1t 10 also attempt to arrest or
to reverse natures inequalities, resulting from
the intrinsic inequalities, intellectual and moral,
of man-an impossible task, and theory re-
plete with every kind OF injustice to men and
to society.
1T is needless to say that the poor law of
England is without tnge of spurious social
ism Mr.. Mill, with his large foresight, readily
perceived the difference between the right of
sustenance of work in parish and the droit
au travail In the Ateers Nationaux never
theless, be pointed out the identity of the prin-
ciple. and justified it, and at the same time rep
resented it's use As extremely inexpedent in the
hands of the government, and liable to procure
both outbreak and socialism-an outbreak in
the disappointed and demoralized. and socialism
in the sharp and perverse Of their leaders it can
hardly be necessary to draw out the reasons.
balanced had not failed to express-for they
must clearly know the distinctness of parish
relief and national workshops would not
weary your readers by detailing them.
First, and above all. to make the state. be-
yond its own legitimate dutiss, of which we will
speak hereafter. the public employer of labor. is
exaggeration of the worst danger in politics,
coupled with the worst form of that danger
namely, exaggerated Capitalization. Even the
Capitalization inevitable and necessary for the
ordinary administration of government, involv-
ing large patronage, with all it's evils, is sufi-
GENTLY dangerous. In any state the mum Der of
official persons is always large. put necessarily
selected. ought to be, for intelligence and fit
ness. But to make the state-that is, the gov
eminent of the day--the only employer of an
unlimited number of the populace at large, who
must necessarily be the least skilled. the least
successful, and to great extent the least trust
worthy of the people, would be public danger,
fatal, sooner or later, to any commonwealth.
and in such commonwealth as it would
lead to certain and speedy disorder National
workshops in this country would destroy the
labor market. It would become political in
huence in all the alternate conflicts of factions
and parties, source of the widest and lowest
patronage, ravenously sought by all kinds and
conditions of men. close field for every kind of
job in the cloud of officials created by it, and
open waste and Generalization of the people
at large"