" We don't want these good things, full employment, etc., handed out to us by the State as
though we were a heap of ants," said Mr. Gardner, secretary of the Birmingham Catholic Social Study Group, to members of the North Council of the C.Y.M.S. at Aston on Sunday. " Our planting to be democratic, to be free, must be carried out as far as possible by the, ordinary man exercising his rights as a responsible citizen."
Mr. Gardner went on to ask : What are man's rights? and to explain that they include " the right to life, and religion, to be reared, educated, to marry and have a family, to own productive property, to freedom and aesoelation with his fellow men (in trade unions, for instance). All these rights are intended for us to advance to our final end in God, who gave them to us, but are limited by the respect we must have for other people's rights. The whole purpose of society is to safeguard those rights so that men may more freely serve God."
The State should encourage responsibility. Whatever function an efficiently be done by • a smaller society than the State should be left to that society, the State being left freeto deal with larger matters concerning the national good. Mr. Gardner said that applying this to modern society it would, in his opinion, mean State control of finance and credit since that is the life-blood of the nation and would otherwise mean a vast .power in private hands. In industry it would mean groups of employers and employees running a ' particular industry ant! they would, be finally subject to the State as a last resort ; the