INDUSTRIALISM And Human Acts

SIR,—Mr. Benvenisti says, in comment on my definition, that Industrialism is " simply the principle of the division of. labour." What I understand by the division of labour is that one man makes shoes and another scythes. Both these are human acts with which I am concerned as a priest. It is my ease that, on the whole, the processes of industrialism are not human acts, and therefore there is a
break in principle, between making Shoes and sliding blanks into jigs of which
ME. Benvenisti seems unconscious. I find this tmemisciousriess shocking.
Adam Smith may be good enough for Mr. Benvenisti. He is not good enough for me. As a Catholic priest I must consider and have knowledge of 'Human Acts.
-A human act requires Freedom, Voluntariness, and Advertence in the mind.
From this standpoint, essential to any Catholic judgment of the facts, there is the clearest possible division between making 'a pair of shoes, and' spending one's days sliding a blank into a jig on a press, pulling a lever, and punching an equally meaningless hole. Saint Thomas says (Contra Gentiles 93), " The reason in the craftsman's mind about the thing to he made is art: wherefore the Philosopher says that art is right reason about things to be made." This operation is a Human Act. Most processes in mass production are not Human Acts, and therefore, as a priest, I cannot tolerate a system which makes them normal and necessary.
Mr. Benvenisti must deal with this point first, because it is primary. Industrialism and Capitalism have many vices, but they are not always the same vices. We can have a collectivised Industrialism, With more difficulty we can have a non-industrial Capitalism.
Perhaps I must also cover the further point that as I believe in God I cannot hold that He would impose sub-human standards as a condition of our survival, but having said that, it also must be left to a later stage if confusion is to be avoided. We must also avoid becoming lost in arguing about detail, Perhaps it will help if I state the case in these terms.
Between the making of shoes, and punching holes in blanks, there is a long series of subtle gradations, and I concede that there may be difficulty in " drawing the line." But, Oil my side of the line, on the whole, is the non-indtearial society. On his side of the line, on the whole, is the industrialised society. Integral life should be the aim of every priest as Of every Catholic, an integral life is possible and normal on my side of the line, and difficult or impossible, and certainly abnormal, on his. How can I possibly agree that men should be condemned to sub-human acts, in order that they may have, in Mr. Benvenisti's words, " better conditions of life and more time to devote to their homes and families "? To do this is, by hypothesis, to consent to evil that good may come. Certainly it is to divide men into watertight compartments. But again, is not that an anti-Catholic process, destructive in the short or the long run of his personality?
(Rev.) D. MARSHALL.
Industrialism and the Standard of Life
SIR,—Mr. Benvenisti is trying to pull a fast one on your clerical correspondents, and although they seem to be dealing with him quite adequately, it is time to call his bluff. He is claiming an intimate (and indeed almost exclusive) inside knowledge of industrialism. So far, the claim is not supported by the evidence.
lie is called upon to make twenty-five parts to a special blueprint. The best and most irresponsible machinists turn up their noses at anything short of twenty-five thousand. He seems to be in a very curious factory indeed. He is unconscious of any damage to his intelligence from repetition work. But if he makes in twenty-fives he does not know what modern repetition work is, and in any case he went to his centre lathe under the war stimulus, and with a mind already formed.
Unless Mr. Benvenisti makes it necessary, I must not embark on the dreary ocean of an analysis of industrial operations, but I should like tomake two points against his special pleading.
Ile advances, as a main proof of their happiness, that his colleagues sing at their turret lathes. The fact astonishes everyone who is familiar with industrialism, but he must not suggest that it is proof either of happiness or of work fit for men. That is, he must not dd it unless he is also prepared to adduce song in the trenches as proof of happiness in the trenches, arid of the human quality of modern war.
Nor must he advance the terrible fact that many men know nothing of real human work as a reason for not introducing them to it. If he does, he defends the system in which Ford Madox Ford's orderly could say to his officer in the trenches, " Do you mean to say, sir, as a man could stand up on a bleedin' hill?"
But to come to the main point of my letter, Mr. Benvenisti short-circuits a defence of industrialism by saying, " It is impossible for the inhabitants of these islands to maintain a human standard of life after the war," without it.
This is quite gratuitous and quite wrong. I invite Mr. Benvenisti 1. To support his statement with reason and fact.
2. To explain how the maintenance or the extension of mass-production would guarantee a human standard of life to our people.
H. ROBBINS,
Weeford Cottage,
Hill, Sutton Coldlield.