CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Srn,—In the very appreciative review of "Christian Economics" in the Spectator of June 23rd, there is a suggestion made which I should like to welcome. Your reviewer suggests the possibility of a state of things in which "there would be an established machinery for investigating, and from time to time certificating, the soundness of the prin- ciples on which all manufacturing or distributing agencies which chose to submit themselves voluntarily to such an examination, carried on their business, and that then the better part of the public would transfer their custom to the firma possessing such certificates." This passage describes exactly the means which had appeared to me possible for securing fair prices and fair wages. I did not mean to lay down that "under the present circumstances of English commerce," the individual is bound to be sure that he buys no article "of which a due proportion of the purchase-money does not go to remunerate the labourers who made it." I fully agree that to demand of
the individual that he should ascertain this would be to lay upon him, as things are now, an impossible burden. In my desire to force home to the individual the responsibility for altering things as they are, I may have given occasion for this misunderstanding. The true responsibility which rests upon the individual I conceive to be the responsibility for bringing into existence some such agencies as the reviewer describes. The "national public," to whose insistance "on the highest ethics of commerce" we are to look, must, after all, be com- posed of individuals who have realised their responsibilities.—
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