CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 139 
rapidly increased. It was the declaration of war against the 
“ laws of May ” and the policy of Prince Bismarck. 
The Bishop of Mayence did not abandon his work. He 
urged his clergy to study unremittingly the social question. 
In 1871 he sent a monitorial circular to all the priests of his 
diocese, directing them to prepare exact statistics as to the 
condition of the working men of their respective parishes. In 
the general assembly of German Catholics which was held at 
Mayence, in September, 187 r, under the inspiration of Mon 
seigneur von Ketteler, the labour question was considered at 
length. The following are some of the resolutions passed on 
the subject :—It is necessary to determine, by means of a 
committee of inquiry composed of workmen and employers, 
the exact moral and material condition of the labouring classes, 
in order that the legislature may be able to enact a code of 
labour (Arbatsrecht). Landed property, trade, and commerce 
enjoy juridical protection, and yet the rights of labour are not 
recognized, although labourers form ninety per cent, of the 
population. The assembly urgently calls for the establishment 
of Christian Social Associations for master-workmen, factory 
hands, young men, women, and young girls, and it reminds the 
well-to-do classes that it is their bounden duty to come liberally 
in aid of these institutions. The assembly deplores the condition 
of labourers’ dwellings, which are a scandal for a Christian 
country, and it insists energetically that societies should be 
formed for the erection of healthy and cheap habitations. A 
proposition censuring strikes was rejected by a large majority. 
The foregoing account will suffice to show the spirit that 
animates the Catholic Socialist movement The work com 
menced by Monseigneur von Ketteler has made considerable 
progress in these last few years. The clergy have everywhere 
devoted themselves to it with ardour, because it affords a means 
of gaining adherents, in the struggles of the Kulturkampf, to the 
profit of the Church and against the government. Among 
those who march in the first rank, may be mentioned, at the 
head Herr Schings, a rector, and Herr Kronenberg, a vicar, at 
Aix-la-Chapelle; Herr Laaf, vicar at Essen; and Herr E. Klein, 
the Dom-capitular of Paderborn. Their efforts tended to bring