COMPANY
ISf)
COMPENSATION
impossible to doubt that they were guilty of an iniq-
uity". According to the testimony of Pere Rapin and
the Coiuit d'ArgcnsDU. these proceedings of the Com-
pany were the starting-point of the pohcy that was to
culminate in 1085 in tlie revocation of the lidict of
Nantes.
The year 1660 witnessed the decline of the company. In consequence of incidents that had occurred at Caen, it was vigorously attacked in a libel by Charles du Four, Abbot of Aulnay, and denounced to Cardi- nal Mazarin by Francjois Harlay de Champvallon, Archbishop of Rouen. On 13 December, 1660, the members held a last general meeting at which, amid expressions of regret and deep emotion, it was decided to suspend their Thursday sessions and to add " ten or twelve elders" to the members of the board so that the company might continue to act provisionally; then these elders and the board selected eight indi- viduals who were to correspond with the country branches, one of the eight being Bossuet. On 13 De- cember, 1660, Parliament issued a decree prohibiting all illicit assemblies, confraternities, congregations, and communities but Lamoignon, a member of the com- pany and the first president, succeeded in preventing it from being designated by name. It seems that the flieetings of the board and the elders, held regularly enough in 166-1 to be instnmiental in obtaining the in- terdiction of "Tartuffe", ceased almost altogether in 1665. The General Hospital and the Seminary of Foreign Jlissions continued -to exist as magnificent legacies of this association which Mazarin and many hostile historians who came after him, scornfully called the "Cabal of Devotees".
D'Argenson, Annales de la compagnie du Saint-Sacrement (Marseiiles, 1900), an important document; Rapin, Memoires (Paris, 1865), II: Clair, La compagnie du Saint-Sacrement: une page de Vhistoire de la charite au XVI^ siecle in Etudes (1888, 1889): Rabbe, Utk socicte secrete catholique au XVll^ sihde in Revue Historique, 1 Nov., 1899: very hostile); Cherot, Lettre h M. Rabbe in Etudes, 20 Nov., 1889); Allier, La cabale des devots (Paris, 1902, very hostile); Rebelliau, Un episode de Vhistoire relifjieuse du XVJl^ siecle in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 July, 1 Aug. and 1 Sept., 1903: a great effort at im- partiality : and DE LA BRit:RE, Ce que jut la cabale des devots (Paris, 1906), an excellent resume.
Gegrge.'s Goyaw. Company of Mary. See Mary, Missionaries op
THE C.IMI'.W'V OF.
Company of St. Ursula. See Ursulines.
Compensation, as considered in the present article denotes the price paid for human exertion or labour. Wherever men have been free to sell their labour they have regarded its compensation as a matter that in- volved questions of right and wrong. This conviction has been shared by mankind generally, at least in Christian countries. At the beginning of the fourth century, the Emperor Diocletian issued an edict which fixed the maximum prices for the sale of all goods, and appointed a legal schedule of wages for nineteen different cla,s.ses of workingmen. In the pre- amble of the edict the emperor declares that his mo- tive is to establish justice among his people (Levas- seur, "Classes ouvrieres avant 1789", I, 112-114). Throughout the Middle Ages and down almost to the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was con- siderable legal regidation of wages in most of the countries of Europe. This practice indicated a belief that the compensation of labour ought to be brought under the rule of law and fairness, as the.sc legislators conceived fair dealing.
The Fathers of the Church implicitly asserted the right of the labourer to sutficient compensation for the maintenance of his life when they declared that God wished the earth to be the common heritage of all men, and when they denounced as robbers the rich who refused to share their surplus goods with the needy. The theologians and canonists of the Middle Ages held that all commodities should be sold at that
price which the social estimate regarded as just; but
they insisted that in arriving at this estimate the com-
munity ought to take into account the utility, the
scarcity, and the cost of production of the commodity.
Inasmuch as the cost of production at that time was
chiefly labour-cost, or wages, a just price for goods
would necessarily include a just price for the labour
that produced the goods. St. Thomas reflects the
common view when he says that labour as well as
goods should bring a just price (Summa Theologica,
I-II, Q. cxiv, a. 1). Langenstein, in the fourteenth
century, is more specific ; for he declares that anyone
can ascertain the just price of the wares that he has to
sell by referring to the cost of living of one in his sta-
tion in life (De Contractibus, Pt. I, cap. xii). Since the
seller of the goods was generally the maker of them also,
Langenstein's rule was equivalent to the doctrine that
the compensation of the master-workman should be
sutficient to furni.sh him a decent livelihood. And we
know that his remuneration did not differ greatly
from that of the journeyman. From the meagre ac-
counts that have come down to us, we are probably
justified in concluding, with Professor Brants, that
these standards of compensation and the methods of
enforcing them generally secured to the medieval
labourer a livelihood which the notions of the time
regarded as becoming (Theories economiques aux xiii"*
et xive siecles, p. 123). .\t the beginning of the seven-
teenth century we find such writers as Molina and
Bonacina asserting that the customary compensation
of a place is, generally speaking, just compensation,
and assuming that the worker has a right to a living
from his labour.
To-day Catholic teaching on compensation is quite precise as regards the just minimum. It may be sum- marized in these words of Pope Leo XIII in the fa- mous Encyclical " Rerum Novarum "(15 May, 189 1 ), on the condition of the working classes: "there is a dictate of nature more ancient and more imperious than any bargain between man and man, that the remunera- tion must be sufficient to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions, because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of fraud and in- justice. " Shortly after the Encyclical appeared. Cardinal Goossens, the Archbishop of Mechlin, asked the Holy See whether an employer would do wrong who should pay a wage sufficient for the sustenance of the labourer himself but not for that of his family. An unofficial response came through Cardinal Zig- liara, saying that such conduct would not be contrary to justice, but that it might sometimes violate char- ity, or natural righteousness — i. e. reasonable grati- tude. As a consequence of the teaching of Leo XIII, there has been widespread discussion, and there exists an immense literature among the Catholics of Europe and America concerning the minimum just wage. The present Catholic position may be summarized somewhat as follows: First, all writers of authority agree that the employer who can reasonably afford it is morally obliged to give all his employees compensa- tion sufficient for decent individual maintenance, and his adult male employees the equivalent of a decent living not only for themselves but for their families; but not all place the latter part of the obligation under the head of strict justice. Second, some writers base this doctrine of a minimum just wage upon the prin- ciple of just price, according to which compens;ition should be equivalent to labour, while others declare that it is implicitly contained in the natural right of the labourer to obtain a decent livelihood in the only way that is open to him, namely, through his labour- contract and in the form of wages. The latter is vm- doubtedly the view of Leo XIII, as is evident from these words of the Encyclical: "It follows that each one has a right to procure what is required in order to
