Union, Christian Social

UNION, CHRISTIAN SOCIAL: A satiety founded in 1889 within the Church of England with the object of directing the best thought among churchmen toward the study of social problems and of bringing the influence of that church, as a corporate body, to bear upon the usages and practise of the world of commerce and industry. The impetus in this direction had first been given forty years previously by F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley (qq.v.), and several other, men of deeply religious convictions, who banded themselves together under the title of "Christian Socialists," this name being adopted because, as Maurice wrote, " It is the only title which will define our object and will commit

us at once to the conflict we must engage in sooner or later with the unsocial Christians and the unchristian Socialists."

The leaders of the earlier movement were chiefly Broad-churchmen, but the men who resuscitated it in the eighties were among the most practical and broad-minded of the newer High-church school, such as Brooke Foss Westcott, late bishop of Durham, Charles Gore, the present bishop of Oxford, and Henry Scott Holland (qq.v.). One of its main principles is that the personal responsibility of an individual Christian can never be put out of commission. It is not to be evaded, for example, by membership in a commercial company, either as a director or as a shareholder. One of its most characteristic objects is " to study in common how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time."

The union comprised at the end bf 1910 sixty branches, situated in fifty-three towns and having 5,895 members. Its affairs are managed by an executive comprising several clerical dignitaries and ladies, with the bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) as its president. The executive submits from time to time such social problems as the questions of unemployment, of children's labor, or the poorlaw system for the study and consideration of the branches. These, again, report upon the facts

which they ascertain, and the conclusions which they reach, to a meeting of delegates of the whole union held annually. In studying these subjects, the local bodies investigate the conditions actually obtaining in their own towns. The union seeks to promote its views not so much by direct corporate action as by influencing local authorities and institutions through members of its own who serve on those bodies, and by raising the tone of public opinion generally. It directly promotes, however, the practise of exclusive dealing with firms known to accord reasonable pay and conditions of employment to their staff, and it has published a "white list" of tailors for both sexes in London and elsewhere. In this it discharges the functions of the Consumers' Leagues in the United States. Several branches have made tentative beginnings in the provision of suitable housing for the wage-earning classes. The union maintains a library and a central bureau of information for the use of its members. From time to time it issues reports and pamphlets on such various topics as commercial morality, tradeunionism, illicit commissions, investments, and practicable socialism, besides others of a more directly religious character. Lastly, it brings out a quarterly periodical entitled The Economic Review, in which articles of considerable value, written by well-known authorities upon the subjects dealt with, frequently

appear. C. H. D'E. LEPPINGTON.