ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 113
COL. DAVID CARNEGIE, F.R.S., EDINBURGH, FORMER MEMBER
IMPERIAL MUNITIONS BOARD, CANADA!
Every one knows that there is something wrong in Society
and Industry. There is no peace. Business, politics and
Church are all disturbed. The war is blamed for the unrest.
[t is said that 45,000,000 people in Britain, and hundreds of
millions throughout the world cannot be shaken up for four
years without disturbing the peace. This is admitted, but
we deceive ourselves if we think that the war is the cause
of the industrial unrest. The war has aggravated the situation,
but is not responsible for it. The cause lies a long way
back. The war has forced the problems of Industry upon
the Church. Chaplains and other preachers have had a baptism
of light on the battlefield from men who never darkened
a church door. They believe they have discovered why men
discount organized religion. The Church has become aroused;
she acknowledges that she has been negligent, and there is a
need for repentance and a new birth. The Church sees the
people of the world at loggerheads, and she is now standing
by wringing her hands and lamenting her past indifference,
powerless to help.
The Church now recognizes, when too late, that the workers
have been undervalued, underpaid, underhoused and overworked.
She sees that labor has now the power to secure,
without the Church’s help, what it considers fair in pay, in
hours and conditions of work. The Church sees a conflict
proceeding between labor and capital and the Government in
which it appears that labor can dictate its own terms. The
Church sees, further, the possibility of great national loss, if
a party or class government with ignorance and power
become autocratic, as in Russia to-day.
The Church believes it knows the rules of the game in
Industry and in the disputes arising therefrom. She is
anxious to tell them to the contending parties. Labor says
it ought to have done that years ago when the employers
"14Can Church and Industry Unite?” Marshall Brothers, London, 1920,
pp. 92-94.
