Thus, in 1920, Italy, according to statistics of her Minister of
Labour, lost 55,000,000 days of work because of strikes alone. From July
to September, many great factories were in the hands of revolutionary
communists. A full third of these strikes had for their end political
and not economic purposes.

In Germany, the progressive revolt of labour against work is thus
measured by competent authority: There were lost in strikes in 1917,
900,000 working days; in 1918, 4,900,000, and, in 1919, 46,600,000.

Even in our own favoured land, the same phenomena are observable. In the
State of New York alone for 1920, there was a loss due to strikes of
over 10,000,000 working days.

In all countries the losses by such cessations from labour are little as
compared with those due to the spirit which in England is called
"ca'-canny" or the shirking of performance of work, and of sabotage,
which means the deliberate destruction of machinery in operation.
Everywhere the phenomenon has been observed that, with the highest wages
known in the history of modern times, there has been an unmistakable
lessening of efficiency, and that with an increase in the number of
workers, there has been a decrease in output. Thus, the transportation
companies in the United States have seriously made a claim against the
United States Government for damages to their roads, amounting to
$750,000,000, claimed to be due to the inefficiency of labour during the
period of governmental operation.

Accompanying this indisposition to work efficiently has been a mad
desire for pleasure, such as, if it existed in like measure in preceding
ages, has not been seen within the memory of living man. Man has danced
upon the verge of a social abyss, and, as previously suggested, the
dancing has, both in form and in accompanying music, lost its former
grace and reverted to the primitive forms of crude vulgarity.

which gives the spectators the maximum of emotional expression with the
minimum of mental effort, had not been eclipsed by the splendour of a
Dempsey or a Carpentier.

Of the last count in Pope Benedict's indictment, I shall say but little.
It is more appropriate for the members of that great and noble
profession which is more intimately concerned with the spiritual advance
of mankind. It is enough to say that, while the Church as an institution
continues to exist, the belief in the supernatural and even in the
spiritual has been supplanted in the souls