Tirades against the tyranny of capital are of little use, as M. de Laveleye points out, speaking on this subject in his late work on Contemporary Socialism, and vague appeals to Government are equally useless, unless a modus operandi is suggested at the same time which would obviate the difficult question: Who will bear the risk of productive enterprise when the laws of the State, formed for the protection of labour, endanger the safety of the enterprise altogether, and make it the interest of the manufacturer to withdraw his capital?

The work of Ketteler and Moufang is still being carried on, in the press mainly by the Christlich Sociale Blätter, and a number of minor publications, all exercising a considerable influence on public opinion among Roman Catholics; and among the large body of the working classes, by the maintenance and extension of a number of associations of masters, journeymen, and apprentices, as well as agricultural and industrial labourers, under the auspices of the Roman Catholic clergy, and subject to ecclesiastical discipline. Father Kolbing, once a journeyman himself, is, or was until quite lately, at the head of this class of artisans, and, as such, has rendered distinguished services, which were fully acknowledged at the time by Bishop Ketteler.

In fact, the main strength of "Catholic Socialism lies in this widely spread system of organization. The number of associations of operatives under Church auspices, surpasses the aggregate amount of all other similar associations taken together.

There are in Germany Catholic associations of masters. and apprentices, of factory labourers, miners, and vintners, there are "Patriotic Bavarian" and Westphalian unions of peasant proprietors, and a number of other societies of men and women in every direction, exercising a

powerful influence under strict clerical supervision, the result of which is that in purely Catholic regions for any efforts of social reform to be successful, it is essential in the first instance to secure the Catholic ecclesiastics as auxiliaries in any such undertaking.

Unhappily for social reform, the Culturkampf broke out at a time when circumstances and events in the industrial life of the nation required perfect union between the Government and the Roman hierarchy. But, in the heat of this conflict, men on either side, equally anxious to restore social harmony in the nation, instead of asking themselves the urgent question, what was to be done, wasted their strength in debating who was to do it, and how. Was society to be saved by an Imperial and imperious dictator, who regarded State Socialism as a form of "practical Christianity," or by the sole instrumentality of that Church whose leaders boldly extended to society the time-honoured principle of Catholicism, "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus"? The late rapprochement between Varzin and the Vatican holds out the hope of speedy removal of this impediment to common action in matters of social interest.

In the General Assembly of Catholics in Germany, held at Düsseldorf in 1883, the following resolution, indicating the present position of the Church on this question, was passed, on the motion of Prince Karl von Löwenstein:

"The General Assembly of German Catholics desires to express its conviction that the social question is not only an economic, but also, and in the first place, a moral and religious one, and therefore its solution is impossible without the united action of Church and State. It regards it, therefore, as essentially necessary, in order to heal the present social evils, for the Church and her institutions to have restored

to them full liberty for the exercise of their social functions."

Similar in tone were the utterances at the last General Assembly held at Trêves in 1887, and still more pronounced in favour of State intervention were the resolutions passed at the International Social Congress of Catholics at Liège, last September.*

Thus the prediction of Cavour has been partially fulfilled, that a time would come when a union would be brought about between Romanism and Socialism, and Ketteler's Kosacken regiment, as it has been contemptuously called by opponents, which has enabled the Roman hierarchy to bring into the field at any given moment an army of artisans and labourers to defend the rights and liberties of the Church, has paved the way for this strange union.

* See L'Association Catholique, October 15, 1887; and Christlich Sociale Blätter, 20 Jahrgang, 21 and 23 Heft.

CHAPTER VI.

HUBER, THE PIONEER OF CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN

GERMANY.

AMONG those who watched with interest the efforts of the Christian Socialists in England, there was an "intelligent foreigner," who, during a professional visit to this country, became acquainted with F. D. Maurice and his friends, whom he visited on two occasions, first in 1844, and then again ten years later. To this last visit he refers in his published letters on the co-operative movement in Belgium, France, and England, a work which at the time enjoyed general and well-deserved popularity.

This gentleman, also the author of some notes on the English Universities, which in their translated form attracted sufficient attention in this country to be quoted in Parliamentary debates, was Victor Aimé Huber, the subject of the present sketch. He forms, so to speak, the connecting link between the Christian Socialists of Germany and England, and also between the Christian Socialism of the past and present generation. He is regarded as the pioneer of the co-operative movement in Germany, and has been called in the recently published memoir of his life and work the forerunner of the modern school of Christian Socialists in that country.

K

The author of this memoir, Dr. Eugen Jäger, a well known contributor to socialistic literature, here gives us a very appreciative account of Huber's earnest endeavours to remove the social disabilities and improve the moral and mental conditions of the working classes. It is to this publication that the present writer owes much of the information contained in this chapter.

Huber was an original character. In days when but few of his contemporaries and sympathizers were able to see the signs of the times, and blindly trusted to traditional forms and repressive measures in their clumsy endeavours to cope with the rising spirit of social discontent, Huber was among the very first to discover in this uneasy state of the public mind a symptom of the rising storm which broke out, but did not spend itself entirely, in the Revolution of 1848. For late socialistic manifestations in Germany form only another stage of its development which makes thoughtful observers of current events dread its final culmination in utter social disruption, unless indeed a serious social revolt is not arrested by timely social reform. To this task Huber addressed himself, and never grew weary preaching, in season and out of season, the duty of the higher classes to raise the lower materially, morally, and mentally, not so much by means of legislation and State help as by voluntary effort for the encouragement of association and co-operation to counteract the evils of competition.

Belonging by hereditary and early training to that party of liberal thinkers in Germany which got its philosophical and political opinions from France, Huber changed his social theories with his religious views at an important crisis of his life, to be mentioned further on, after which he began to look to constructive and conservative social reforms as the best means of pre