The Irish standard., 1912-01-20
FEW SOCIALISTS TO
Be FOUND IN IRELAND
Bishop O'Dea Believes Communism
is Finding it Hard to Get
Foothold There.
Adjustment of Private Property he
Says Would Mean Destruc-
ton of Initiative.
Let the Individual Have Right
to Live Independent of State,
Not a Slave to it.

In the course of a sermon in the
Pro-Cathedral OF ST. Nicholas Gal
way. not long ago. Bishop O'Dea all
luded to the economic questions that
are disturbing society not only in this
country but In Ireland and all Europe
as well. His analysis of the fallacies
of Socialism is we'll worth studying.
When God said. at the beginning,
Let man have dominion over
! the land and the things of the
land,' He must have meant,
at least. that every man in the
world should have the right to use the
them to keep up life and to protect
himself. Further, when man had talk
en- upon himself the support of q wife
and children, he had the right to pro-
duce not merely for himself, but for
| the support of his wife and children.
These were practical questions affect
lay at the root of all property. Quite
erroneous views were held upon them,
and these views had gained in strength.
He did not think they had gained any
strength in Ireland or that there were
many Socialists or Communists in Ire
land. But we were threatened with.
in1u hu1 hn 1,I
| ton here, as the recent strike brought
] home to our minds, and the labor ques
ton was the question of the future,
infinitely bigger than the land ques-
ton which had been causing so much
trouble in Ireland for the last twenty
or twenty-five years. Three different
whether men had a right to acquire all
that they needed for their lives and
PASS it ON to their neighbors, and
whether they had IL right even to ac-
j quirc more than they wanted. One
answer was the old one, that "a man
had q right to do what he liked with
/
| food or anything he had. The other
was the extreme view on the other
sde--thc view of the Communists
Having dealt at length with Com
munism, his LOrdship pointed out that
property had it's duties as well as its
rights, and went on to eXpOund the
middle view taken by the Catholic
Church. The Church held that every
man had right to live and If he had
a right to live he had q right to use
. what he needed to live, and to lay 1t
up for the future as n thinking, far
seeing man. and to provide not merely
for himself but for his children. He
had all these rights, but he had also
duties-W The duties imposed upon
him by nature and by the law Of God,
and CD the duties imposed by the
Government of the country under
which he lived. First. the law of ma
ture and Of God said that If man
had more than he needed, and II there
was man starving beside him, mas
much as the things that God gave He
made for the use Of all, that man had
a right If he was actually starving to
take as much as he needed. Again,
an employer had his duties towards
! his men, such as to provide healthy
conditions under which they would
work and a variety of other duties
! No. 2 supplied the real answer to the
! Socialists, who said that nobody was
to own anything. Men had too much
because they did not observe the law
of nature and the law of God in the
acquisition and the use of their prop
erty, or. again, because the Govern
mcnt did not discharge it's duty and
put a stop to the abuses in the acquisi-
| ton of property. Here was tho
strength of the Catholic position; they
! said, LET the individual have Il right
to live; let him be Independent of the
State and not a slave to 1t, but let
him work out his destiny like man,
and at the game time let the State or
the Government watch over him, and
| If he did not do what was right, let
the State come in to prevent abuses"
That view gave to society all the pow
er that 1t needed to heal and cure the
ills Of life. To abolish all private