LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A CORRECTION OF THE CHURCH CONGRESS
REPORT.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
you allow me to set right in your columns a mis- take in the official report of the late Church Congress at Hull, as I do not know of any other channel by which I should be likely to reach so many persons interested in the questions discussed at this annual meeting.
I was asked to speak on the subject of Socialism, and con- sented to do so in order to impress upon Congress how deeply the Church of England is already pledged to the Co-operative movement, as it is called,—or, in other words, to the only form of Socialism which has any hold on the English people. In doing this, I had to refer to the " Christian Socialists " of 1849, and to their original object, as stated in the constitution of their Council—viz., " the application of the principles of Christianity to trade and industry "—and to the substitution for this formula of the three propositions which have been accepted ever since by the Co-operative Union, viz. :— (1.) That human society is a body with many members, not a collection of warring atoms.
(2.) That true workmen must be fellow-workers, not rivals.
(3.) That a principle of justice, not of selfishness, must govern exchanges.
This substitution was made by Mr. Maurice in a memoran- dum, of which I had the original manuscript, beginning with the words : " I am guilty of first using the name Christian Socialist, which was afterwards adopted in our tracts, and in Mr. Ludlow's newspaper." It was necessary for me to refer ,to this document, and to state its purport ; but as I had only ten minutes, I could not do more than allude to it in my speech. I therefore asked the secretary to print the whole memorandum, as it seemed to me important that it should be before all Churchmen who take an interest in the subject. He and the committee agreed with me, and so I handed the manu- script to them, and only cursorily referred to it in my speech. By some mistake—very probably my own—the proofs of my speech were not revised, and so the whole memorandum is printed as part of my speech, without inverted commas, or Any other indication to show that it is Mr. Maurice who is speaking, and not I. Moreover, the sentence in which I re- ferred to the memorandum is also left out of the report of my speech, so that readers will be almost certain to attribute the whole to me, instead of to my master in social science,— the wisest and best man I have ever known.
You will understand at once how annoying this must be to me, and there is no way now to set it entirely right; but if you allow me to explain the error, I shall feel that I have done what I can to atone for my own carelessness, or that of some one else. I may add that the passage begins with the words quoted above, " I am guilty," &c., on p. 337 of the official report of the Congress, and goes down to the words, "a public which we must offend by the testimony we bear against evils which it tolerates and holds sacred," on p. 338.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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