At Brackley on Tuesday, Dr. Magee enjoined on his clergy
not to mix themselves up in the question of wages between the agricultural labourers and their employers. "The duty of the Church Clergy in the struggle was strict neutrality." That may be true, so long as the question is an economical one only. But so far as it is a moral one,—and it is a moral one, when the physical condition of the labourer is inconsistent with self-respect and decency,—the clergy surely are as much bound by their duty to exert themselves for the removal of the conditions which involve vice, as they are to resistance to vice itself. It may be quite true that they should not upbraid the employers for what is seldom the employers' fault. But somehow or other,—be it by emigra- tion, or otherwise,—it is the first obligation of moral and spiritual teachers to procure that the misery which is the hot-bed of vice should be removed.
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