Article II. On the Lower Limit of a Just Wage

417. With what intention and with what hope of fruit we write concerning these matters. 1. First of all, it is useful to bring forward here the golden counsels which Leo XIII sent to the Bishops of Belgium in the letter of 3 August 1881: “This, moreover, must be guarded against in conducting controversies: that the measure which the laws of equity and charity prescribe not be transgressed”; and afterward: “But in those things which are freely permitted to the disputations of wise men, let minds be exercised, with you persuading and admonishing them, in such a manner that diversity of opinions does not rupture unity of minds and concord of wills.” Cf. D’Hulst, 6th conference at Notre-Dame de Paris, 1896, I.

2. Therefore, with a mind in no way agitated and with zeal for proposing the truth, we shall disclose what we judge to be preferred in this matter. And if one cannot dispute without censure of diverse opinions, we shall nevertheless endeavor to explain and judge these opinions with an equitable mind, so that every excessive contention and every contempt may be absent from our argument.

Indeed, even that very censure of another opinion will not always be able to advance so far that we deny a legitimate use of tenets which we disapprove, until the truth has been made more manifest.

Nor, while we define what justice demands concerning the lowest recompense of labor, do we intend to inquire whether and how great a sin there is in this matter. We do not deny that this matter will be arduous if it is necessary to come to particular conclusions.

3. But if the matter stands thus, someone could ask: to what purpose is this doctrine which does not produce definite obligations? To what purpose are the pontifical documents themselves, which have not removed the doubts?

But in truth, the matters concerning which, after these letters, a consensus of good men is now had are neither few nor slight. Moreover, even if these are set aside, we judge that the fruit of the letters of the Supreme Pontiff was and is great, and we do not regard the disputation itself as fruitless. For, to pass over both the tenets of liberal economic doctrine which were overthrown and the minds of all which were aroused and induced to understand both present questions and to discover arts for consulting at once the good of the proletarians and the welfare of the state—from which zeal and care how many excellent institutions and most useful laws have arisen—to pass over all these things, the very suspicion of an office or debt is accustomed to make pious or honorable men attentive lest they incur reproaches of conscience in any respect. Therefore, with consideration of the past perhaps left aside as uncertain, they will then apply themselves to arranging the present and future in the best manner they can.¹ Then the disputation itself, if it is conducted without obstinacy, will without great difficulty make those things which are true in this matter manifest to many. And this persuasion of many will not only be the cause why a few private men now act rightly, but will prepare a better and happier condition of the state itself.

¹ The distinguished Périn seems to have perceived these things excellently when, work cited (2nd ed.), p. 387, he wrote: “For me, the true import of the decisions of the encyclical concerning the wage is first of all to proscribe every speculation upon the worker’s necessities. It is next to determine the employer, through fear of commutative justice, to do everything which the state of his industry permits in order to assure the worker a sufficient wage; to take every measure which can directly or indirectly improve his condition and assure him the necessities.” Cf. also pp. 403–407, 414, 417.

418. Order of discussion. In order that the discourse may proceed according to reason and method, in the first part we shall view the present cause as if from without, so that, with the mind not yet preoccupied by opinions, we may attain the force and intention both of the encyclical Rerum novarum of 16 May 1891 and of a certain Roman response whose celebrity is unknown to no one. Then will follow the three parts by which we are accustomed to treat arguments.