The record-union., 1895-10-26
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
Remarkable Jeremiad by Dean Farrar
of Canterbury.
ssTrue Religton'' as q Remedy for
the Ills of the World
AS It Is.
From the zew York Evening Post. ]


Farrar of Canterbury, which will add
to the regret with which most intelli-
gent students of human affairs have
watched the part the clergy have taken
in the sociological discussions of the last
twenty years. We should be sorry 10
say they had all worked mischief 1of
good many have kept their heads, ana
the great majority have rendered the
best service most men can render to
their fellow-men by active, diligent
work in the field in which Providence
has placed them. But by far the larger
part of the talk of the talking ones
about poverty and labor has simply
promoted strife and irrationality, and
thereby lowered the Importance OF char
acter in the eyes of the ignorant and
less thoughtful portion of the commun-
ity Nothing does more MISCHIEF at
this crisis than the suggestion TO the
poor that the world is going down hill,
and that the Well-to-do are responsible
for it. The continual reproduction OF
this thesis in vague and somewhat
wordy rhetoric is one Of the most IN
settling agencies of the day, and rem
ders the solution of nearly all the press
ing and soluble economical problems
more and more difficult.
Dean Farrar'S first problem" is the
growth of large fortunes and the col
location of wealth and poverty IN the
large cities. His account OF the matter
would leave on the mind of any ignor-
ant man the impression that it was the
riches which produced the poverty, ana
the happiness of the prosperous which
begot the misery of the paupers. The
truth is that the connection between
them is almost typographical. The
presence of large masses Of poverty IN
cities is largely due to the flocking into
the towns of the vicious, the lazy, the
unfortunate and the incompetent. They
come here to seek their fortunes ana
are soon the victims of their own mis-
take The industrious and prosperous
GO not encourage or invite them, and
could not keep them out of the cities
if they would.
The Dean also suggests that some
body is to blame for this rapid growth
of the large cities, and quotes Heinrich
Heine, James Russell Lowell and Hulk
ley, Lord Rosebery and Chauncey De-
pew in support of the thesis that there
are far more people in cities than there
ought to be. But what is the remedy?
II he does not propose to fix the pOpula-
ton of cities by law, what does he mean
by calling the size of cities a prob
lem? If he does, who is to decide when
a city has enough inhabitants?
He expresses, too, great anxiety
about the unparalleled growth of pop
rlation'' But he does not say how
population is to be kept down. He pre-
diets hurricanes of disturbance" in
trade, which will throw vast numbers of
people out of employment if the unfit"
do not stop increasing, and declares
that very dark days may be within
measurable distance OF our present con-
ditions of society," But a much more
solemn fact is that in thirty years
most of the present population of the
Globe will have disappeared from 1t en-
Ii. ely. How are the unfit to be kept
from increasing? Are the well-to-do
responsible for the size of shiftless
mems families? But the worst passage
in the essay is this:
yet though the actual laborers are
ever being multiplied, the fund avail
able for them becomes a constantly
decreasing factor of the national
wealth, and while the rich are growing
richer, the great masses of the poor are
growing relatively poorer.
Nothing has done more to turn the
thoughts of the poor away from honest
industry and fill their hearts with bit
terness than the repetition Of this as
sertion. which, in the mouth of Debs
or Sovereign, we should call wicked
nonsense, but which in the mouth of Il
Dean we suppose we must treat more
this theme with knowledge would know
that wages had greatly risen in all
branches of industry throughout the
civilized world during the last quarter
Of a century, and that not only have
wages risen, but the necessaries and
comforts of life have fallen, so that the
working classes are on the whole better
fed. lodged, clothed and taught, enjoy
more freedom and in all ways a larger
and happier life than at any previous
period of the Christian era. What is
declining is not the fund available for
the laborer," bu the capitalists share
of production. This great falling off
in the inducement to save, otherwise
known as the lowering of the rate of in
terest. is in fact one of the most serious
phenomena of the industrial world to-
day.
What is nearly as bad is the sugges-
ton. which runs through nearly all
teremiads like Dean Farrar's, that the
rich spend all their money in senseless
and selfish luXuries so that the poor
get no benefit from accumulated
wealth. A very small amount Of refec-
ton ought to show any man who thinks
about these things at all, that in our
day all large fortunes have to be in
vested in something in order to produce
income: that no invested fortune can
yield income unless it employs labor;
and that the proportion of a large for
tune which even the most selfish and
luxurious man can spend on himself in
a year is necessarily extremely small
compared with what goes out in wages
and in the plant used for the employ
ment of labor.
The Deans fears about various other
hobgoblns cyclones, hurricanes and cat
aclysms, viii hardly repay discussion In
fact they hardly need discussion in view
Of the fact with which every middle-aged
man is familiar. that the advance OF the
world during the last fifty years in every
thing which makes for human happiness
and comfort has been enormous. In the
article alone of security from violence,
oppression or injustice, this advance has
surpassed the widest dreams OF all past
ages In fact, at no period in the history
of mankind have the masses OF the peo-
pie enjoyed 50 large a share in the bene-
fits OF q very high CIVILIZATION, ana the I'M
provement continues, in spite OF the dem
agogues and utOpiStS, who are now the
greatest binderanceS to human progress.
Character thanks TO them, is having just
now the greatest struggle it has ever had
for its proper share in molding the desti-
MES of the race. Frantic efforts are being
made, too many of them clerical to per
suade the masses that lack of forethought
temperance, industry, and fidelity can be
ACCOMPLISHED by legislation. and that the
failures of the world have a right 70 live
on the virtuous and happy. The result
has been much heart-burning, and delu-
sion, but this, too. viii pass" The fittest
will survive, and their morality is sure in
the long run to rule the world.
Dean Farrar's final remedy for the woes
he describes, which comes in at the end,
IS true religion" What this means he
does not distinctly explain. But we sup
pose, when produced in . semi-economical
article il must mean SorAething concrete
and palpable. such as an immense turning
to the church on the part of the masses
DR.. Strong some years ago published a
book somewhat like the Deans article,
giving a very depressing picture of the
moral and social condition of "Our Conn
try" Turning over. to the end for the