Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/312

 120 THE CONDITION OF LABOR.

differently who hold out to a hard-pressed people free- dom from pain and trouble, undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment they cheat the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only make the evil worse than before. There is nothing more useful than to look at the world as it really is and at the same time to look elsewhere for a remedy to its troubles.

21. The great mistake that is made in the matter now under consideration is to possess one's self of the idea that class is naturally hostile to class ; that rich and poor are intended by nature to live at war with one another. So irrational and so false is this view, that the exact contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human body is the result of the disposition of the mem- bers of the body, so in a State it is ordained by nature that these two classes should exist in harmony and agree- ment, and should, as it were, fit into one another, so as to maintain the equilibrium of the body politic. Each requires the other ; capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in pleasantness and good order; perpetual conflict neces- sarily produces confusion and outrage. Now, in pre- venting such strife as this, and in making it impossible, the efficacy of Christianity is marvelous and manifold. First of all, there is nothing more powerful than Religion (of which the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing rich and poor together, by reminding each class of its duties to the other, and especially of the duties of justice. Thus Religion teaches the laboring-man and the workman to carry out honestly and well all equitable agreements freely made; never to injure capital, or to outrage the person of an employer; never to employ violence in representing his own cause, or to engage in riot or disorder ; and to have nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful

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