Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/59

 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL-REFORM MOVEMENT 4 5

kind of property, land for example, be denied, it at once follows that the state would have no more right to appropriate it, to the exclusion of mankind at large, than any single individual or group of individuals within the state would possess.

The right of the laborer to a due share of the product of his own labor is insisted upon. In the words of Count Soderini : '

Neither the landowner as regards "land" nor the "capitalist" in refer- ence to "profit" should ever seek for more than what belongs to them in proportion to the "utility" by them afforded and the service by them rendered.

Wages should correspond "with the quality and quantity of the work supplied, and should likewise be in accord with the quality and quantity of the workers' needs."

"The surplus value which accrues exclusively and directly from the labor of the workman the employer cannot under any pretext withhold from him, inasmuch as he would be defrauding him of a part of what belohgs to him." At the same time the workmen should take into consideration the condition of the busi- ness, and they have no right to demand wages so high as to devour the legitimate profits of the employer.

The effort to obtain the largest possible amount of labor at the least possible wages is criminal. In the words of Leo XIII. (encyclical Rerum Ncvarum): "To exercise pressure for the sake of gain upon the indigent and the destitute, and to make one's profit out of another's needs, is condemned by all laws, human and divine." The wage-workers are entitled to enough free time for the full performance of religious and domestic duties, and for needed recreation and self-culture. This end is attained by the multiplication of rest-days, even better than by the shortening of the hours of labor. Boards of conciliation and courts of arbitration, in which employers and workmen are both represented, are a valuable means of settling disputes in the matter of wages and of hours, or any other differences that ma)- arise. Legislation may be resorted to for the enforcement of the just rights of both parties, but only with the utmost

■ Socialism and Catholicism, English translation, very crude and defective, by Richard Jenery-Shee, of the Inner Temple, (London, New York, and Bombay : Long- mans, Green & Co., 1896), p. 140.