CHAP. XXIV ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 433 



A century passed, and the great martyr of freedom, 

 Sir Thomas More, powerfully set forth the wrongs of the 

 workers and the crimes of their rulers in his ever- 

 memorable Utopia. Near the end of this work he 

 thus summarizes the governments of his time in words 

 that will apply almost, if not quite, as accurately to-day : 



" Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful that is so 

 prodigal of its favours to those that are called gentlemen, or such 

 others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving the 

 arts of vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, takes no care of those 

 of a meaner sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without 

 whom we could not subsist ? But after the public has reaped all 

 the advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with 

 age, sickness, and want, all their labours and the good they have 

 done is forgotten, and all the recompense given them is that they 

 are left to die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeav- 

 ouring to bring the hire of labourers low^er — not only by their 

 fraudulent practices, but by the laws w^hich they procure to be made 

 to that eff"ect ; so that though it is a thing most unjust in itself to 

 give such small rewards to those who deserve so w^ell of the public, 

 yet they have given those hardships the name and colour of justice, 

 by procuring laws to be made for regulating them. 



' ' Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no 

 other notion of all the governments that I see or know than that 

 they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the 

 public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and 

 arts they can find out ; first, that they may, without danger, preserve 

 all that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may engage 

 the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and 

 oppress them as much as they please." ^ 



Here we have a stern demand for justice to the 

 workers who produce all the wealth of the rich, as clearly 

 and as forcibly expressed as by any of our modern 

 socialists. Sir Thomas More might, in fact, be well taken as 

 the hero and patron-saint of Socialism. 



A century passed away before Bacon in England, and 

 Campanelli in Italy, again set forth schemes of social 

 regeneration. Bacon's Neto Atalantis supposed that the 

 desired improvement would come from man's increased 

 command over the powers of nature, which would give 

 wealth enough for all. We have, however, obtained this 

 command to a far greater extent than Bacon could 



^ Cassell's National Library— C/'^'o^jja, p. 17. 

 VOL. XL F F 



