The annual Church Congress was opened on Tuesday at Hull
with an address from the Bishop of Durham, Dr. West- cott, who is Acting President in consequence of the illness of the Archbishop of York. We have commented elsewhere on what we regard as a defect in this address, an exaggeration of the importance of the Labour question as compared with religion ; but it was most eloquent, and pervaded by a spirit of charity towards the poor, Dr. Westcott deprecated reliance on the law to do what can only be done by the spirit of love, and, we may add, of love on both sides, a detail too much kept in the background. We fear he was too hopeful when he said that men were beginning to realise that "we are one man in Christ." Mr. Burns, who is a representative man on one side, does not seem to realise that at all, his version being that we
are all one if we work with our hands for weekly wages. Christ did not die, the fanatics of labour think, for Income-
tax payers. The Bishop, in a striking passage, pointe0 out the value of the Old Testament, as teaching the right re- lations of a nation of brethren, who were, however, it may be remarked, almost exclusively peasant-proprietors, and were not exposed to much competition. Dr. Westcott, we imagine, thinks that there is a change coming, under which a new kind of employer will spring up, perhaps the State, perhaps the Municipality, perhaps the Co-operative Association. "To follow industrial movement," he said, "as
production has passed from the workman—[not workmen, surely, as reported in the Times]—to the large employer, from the large employer to the company, is to be filled as with hope for the next step." Hope is always good, but is it certain that the " movement " from individualism or associated work has done anything but increase production P There are more things and more people, but is there more happiness ? We suspect that the happiest labour is that wbiph cannot be distributed.
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