It would be regrettable if the present year were allowed to pass without some mention in these pages of the centenary of Léon Harmel, born in 1829, that great lover of social justice whose name is connected with the issue of the Rerum Novarum. The great encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, which may well be called the workman’s charter of liberties, is a doctrinal expression of the principles which Harmel strove during his long life of eighty-six years to put into practice among his own employees.

His fellow-countrymen held the celebrations of his centenary in Paris in February last, and in May similar celebrations took place in Rome. It is greatly to be desired that we also in England may find some fitting means during the course of this year to bring back to the public mind the principles and work for which the name of Léon Harmel stands. At present his name and work are almost unknown even among Catholics in this country, where, much more than in France, we are reaping the evil harvest of social injustice which he prophesied with such a certain voice. The French celebrations have produced a fruit of lasting worth in the brochure published by Père Guitton,

S.J., with its title significative of the life-work of Harmel, Léon Harmel et L’ Initiative Ouvrière. Liberty and enterprise of the individual—that is the type of teaching so much needed in these days of insane monopoly and centralisation which are fast bringing into existence the Servile State—the organised exploitation of the work of the masses for the private advantage of the few.