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New Bishops' Statement on Social Order:
"JUSTICE NOW !" FOREWORD. (By the Most Rev. J. D. Simonds, D.D., Ph.D., Secretary of the Episcopal Committee on Catholic Action)
Last year the Australian Hierarchy directed that the Sunday within the octave of St. Joseph's Patronage should be known each year as Social Justice Sunday, when special attention would be given to the public exposition of Catholic social principles. This action of the Hierarchy was received with widespread interest and sympathy, and the official Statement of Catholic principles which was issued for the occasion exIt is nct presumptuous to claim that the cited nation-wide interest. united Catholic voice, which was heard throughout Australia last year demanding that Christian principles should be applied to our social life, fortified the determination of the Australian people to take at least one definite step in that direction by establishing family endowment as an element in our national social policy. On the occasion of the second Social Justice Sunday the Australian National Secretariat of Catholic Action has prepared the following statement which
reaffirms some basic principles that touch a thoroughly Catholic concept, the family wage, and indicates how they should extend not merely to innumerical dustrial workers, whose strength is already highly organised, but to every member of the human family who feels that life is a veritable struggle for existence. The statement is a timely one, for family endowment, which is now an accepted principle in our midst, is but one facet of the broader principle of the family wage, and of the still more fundamental question of the role which the Christian family .:could play in a rightly ordered State. Special interest will be aroused by the eighth chapter of the statement, in which it is suggested that the conciliation committees, which have been evolved by the grim necessities of war, may yet develop into the eventual control of industry by industrial councils, representative of all groups that are vitally interested in particular indusThis would surely be an adtries. vance towards the organic conception of society which Pope Pius XI envisaged as the only sound substitute for the sad condition of class warfare which disgraces modern social life. Enlightened direction along these lines will be of great value in these days, for the natural reactions against the abuses of the existing economic system threatens to swing us over to some form of totali-
tarian control of human life.
"Our keenly anticipated "new order" will be more odious than the old if we merely succeed in exchanging the tyranny of individualistic greed for the
tyranny of complete domination the State.
+ J. D. SIMONDS, Archbishop of Hobart. (Secretary, Episcopal Committee Catholic Action.) INTRODUCTION. 1.
In the past year matters of great
public importance have arisen involving principles stated by the Bishops of Australia and New Zealand one year ago. Among them are:(a) The recent decision of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court on the basic wage. lb) The passage of Federal legislation introducing a system of Child Endowment in Australia. lc) The renewed interest which has been displayed in the collaboration of workers and owners in the control of industrial disputes. 2. These matters, prominently before the public eye, involve principles elaborated in the Social Encyclicals and in the Bishops' Statement of last year. It is of great importance, therefore, that the Christian attitude to each of these questions should be understood by workers, by employers, and by legislators, so that their actions may be enlightened by the knowledge of Chris. tian principles. 3. In addition, the present critical state of the war cannot blind us to the fact that the conclusions of hostilities will face Australia and New Zealand with social problems of the first magnitude. The aftermath of the present war will witness a challenge to the whole social system, and unless the Christian principles which alone can furnish a stable basis for social reconstruction are properly understood, it is not impossible that the British Commonwealths of Australia and New Zea-
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land will be a prey to social chaos and violence. Chapter I. THE MEANING OF SOCIAL
JUSTICE. 4. In the course of this Statement a number of principles will be laid down. the observance of which is demanded by Social Justice. 5. It is important to understand that the demand of social justice refers to the public authorities who are responsible for shaping the social economy. Their duty is to take those measures that will bring about the conditions that
will enoble the economic system to ful-
fil its purpose of maintaining life. 6. But Social Justice is binding also on the individual members of the community, forbidding them to do anything which interferes with the achievement of the common good. 7. It is necessary that the seriousness of the obligation imposed by Social Justice should be realised. When it is said that the right to a Family Wage is absolute in Social Justice, too few people realise how personal is the responsibility of an employer who flagrantly infringes that right, 8. Even the workers whose interests are directly concerned in this matter of the Family Wage do not fully realise that an employer who pays a wage approximating to it is not doing anything more than he is bound to do. 9. In paying the Family Wage an employer is simply giving his workers what belongs to them. He is handling THEIR money, not his own. And just as a person has no right to retain money belonging to another, so no employer, where the industry can really afford to pay the Family Wage, is entitled to withhold it. 10. By doing so he would be taking possession of money not his own, and his conduct would be equivalent to
theft.
11. This is only an example, and it must not be supposed that Social Justice or the right to a Family Wage is confined to one particular class. All men have the right to receive the Family Wage, irrespective of whether they are industrial workers or not.
In the discussion which follows on the Family Wage, the word "worker'' is used in the sense of all men who must work for a living whether they be industrial workers or not. 12. The rights which wage-earners enjoy in Social Justice have their corresponding duties. The Bishops explained these duties in their Statement of 1940.
"Workers have their special obligations, such as giving an honest day's work for a fair day's pay, and of using the family wage with prudence and thrift, not squandering it
on useless luxuries, but providing for the future, as well as the present, welfare of the members. This requires some self-denial and forethought, which are more easily practised with the help and guidance of religion." Chapter II. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE FAMILY. 13. It is impossible to consider Social Justice apart from a consideration of the family. 14. The family is the primary society; it existed before the State and its rights come before those of the State. The State can never enjoy a stable existence unless the family is preserved. All social reform must be judged by the standard of whether it assists the family or not. If it assists it, is is good. If it handicaps it, it is bad. 15. Social Justice demands three things for the family, as stated by the Hierarchy of Australia in the declaration of 1940. .1a) Children are to enjoy their father's guidance and their mother's care. It is a perilous policy for the State to allow those economic circumstances to continue which deprive children of this care and guidance because the mother is forced to work to increase the family income. (b) The child has the right to physical, intellectual, moral and religious development. The obligation for providing this rests on the parents. Where the parents cannot undertake in full detail the task of educating their children, they may delegate teachers to do so. The teacher, however, always remains the agent of the parent, and neither the teache-, nor an association of teachers, nor the State can claim rights which con counter to those of the parents In matters of education, the State has the duties and rights of protection and control. The State may take measures to ensure that all its citizens receive an adequate education. It should do this by supporting, regulating and supplementing private initiative. It should not become a monopolist. (c) The breadwinner has the right to receive a Family Wage, so that the security and independence of human life may be ensured. Chapter III. THE RIGHT OF THE WORKER TO A FAMILY WAGE. It is necessary that three guiding principles of Christian social doctrine with regard to the Family Wage should he stated clearly at the beginning: 16. The Worker is Entitled in Justice to the Family Wage. In his last great (Continued on Page 11.)
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