90 W. CUNNINGHAM, D.D., AECHDEACON OF ELY, ON 



and nationalisation of railways : — " You place a very large number 

 of men in the paradoxical position of being both employer and 

 employed " ; and " Suppose the Government were to nationalise the 

 railways and one or two large industries, say those of mining and 

 shipping. In that case it might be quite possible that the 

 employees in the Post Office, the railways, the mines, the shipping 

 industry, and the Civil Service might l:>e half, or a little more than 

 half, the whole working population. What would then prevent the 

 employees of the Government using their votes to increase their 

 salaries all round 1 This would not only be an enormous injustice 

 to persons in private employment, who would pay the increased 

 taxes and yet get no benefit themselves ; but it might also lead to 

 the bankruptcy of the nation. It seems also extremely unjust that 

 the State or the municipality, having well-nigh inexhaustible 

 resources of taxation, should compete with private individuals." 



Finally Mr. Strachey holds up the Eoman Empire as a warning 

 which " was not destroyed by the barbarians' armies. Rome fell 

 because her people had been ruined and pauperised by the insidious 

 action of State Socialism." 



All, or most, of us here admit the evils of Socialism. It is due 

 in large measure to the unlawful and grinding exactions of employers, 

 upon employed. Those revelations made by a previous speaker from 

 his own observation are terrible and demand redress. The fact 

 remains that Socialism is with us and has to be faced. The question 

 therefore is : — " What is the remedy ? " I unhesitatingly answer, 

 "The gospel of Christ proclaimed and lived in a loving and 

 sympathetic manner in the midst of the toiling masses." It was a 

 great pleasure to find the author of the paper insist upon the 

 importance and power of Christianity, and its distinguishing 

 difference from Socialism, and a surprise to hear a clergyman say— 

 and repeat it — that " Christianity is a failure." Nay, Christianity 

 has not failed, or to put it in a better way, Christ has not failed and 

 never can. 



Take a concrete illustration of the benefit and power of a living 

 and practical Christianity. In a poor parish of 6,000 (next to my 

 own in Liverpool), a dignitary of our Church began the work in a 

 cellar with four people present. In a thirty-three years' ministry he 

 had built a church and three mission halls, and carried on a ragged 

 school at a cost of £300 per annum, former pupils from which are now 



