The Irish standard., 1919-11-01
IDEAL GOVERNMENT MEANS THE UNION
OF LIBERTY AND AUTHORITY.

OF LIBERTY AND AUTHORITY.
Ideal government is indeed very pithily described
by likening it to a concordant between liberty and
authority.
Montana, recently developed this theory into top
ical discourse delivered in the Baltimore Cathedral
on the occasion of Cardinal Merciers visit He said
Liberty is the slave Of law, and authority is it's
safeguard. There can be no order, and, therefore,
no peace or prosperity under any form of govern
ment unless both authority and liberty be recog-
nlzed. Authority must protect liberty, and liberty
must support authority But in a democracy no
sentiment needs to be cultivated with greater care
than that of respect and reverence for authority
The chaos that reigns in those countries which
have been subjected to Bolshevism should be les
son to the new world democracy. Hoodwinked by
radical leaders, the people only dethroned autoc
racy, but overturned the whole social order and set
up complete state socialism. They were told eff
cheney would be increased, production stimulated,
national wealth multiplied, and the condition of the
workers improved. Results have shown that neither
national prosperity nor individual welfare has been
promoted. Russia which under the rule of the Gar
produced and exported more foodstufTs than the
United States, has been brought to the brink Of
bankruptcy and its people to the verge of starvation
and Hungary in her extremity clamored for re-
turn of the monarchy Socialism carried to it's log-
cal conclusions is Bolshevism and anarchy: 1t
spells economic, political and moral ruin The new
democracy should have none of it.
Class Rule Menaces.
Another thing the democracy must be on it's
guard against is the spirit of class rule Labor and
capital still striving for the mastery. At the
bottom of the struggle greed and pleasure which
Leo XIII. called the twin plaques of modern So
cety. There be doubt that labor has suffered
much in the past that, to the strong language
of Pope Leo, "a number of very rich men had laid
on the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke
little better than slavery ITSELF But this is no
reason why private ownership itself should be held
responsible for the cruelty and the injustice Labor
and capital depend much upon each other as do
liberty and authority. Just there be no poit-
ical prosperity unless liberty and authority prop
erly balanced, so there can be no economic prosper
ity unless capital and labor have due regard for each
others rights.
The remedy, then is not the abolition OF the right
|of private property but rather it's widest possible
diffusion. Hence, there should not only be liv-
ing wage sufficient for the decent maintenance of
family. but labor co-partnershp in industry ard
labor participation in industrial management This
is the remedy outlined by the bishops of the Catic-
|lic National War Council Of the United States Il
is the remedy hintedst by Pope Benedict XIV, who,
in recent letter to the bishops of France saws
Who does not that henceforth the current flows
more and more strongly toward democracy: The
proletariat, having taken preponderant part in the
war, is anxious in every country to obtain from it
the greatest possible advantage. Instead,
there of merely opposing their claims, clergy and
people ought to support them, provided they are
within the bounds of what is lust and honest as set
on The Condition of Labor"