INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20249, 8 May 1929, Page 14

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

PROPOSED "TRUCE OF GOD."

APPEAL BY CHURCHMEN.

PLEA FOR A YEAR'S PEACE.

[FBOSI OUR OWN COItRESrONDENT.] SYDNEY. May 2. With so much industrial unrest throughout Australia it is little wonder that there should bo people who ask: "What is the Church doing? Cannot the Church exert some influence for the general peace of industry?" It has remained for the Goulburn Dioin New South Wales, to accept the challenge, as it wore, and its answer has been that there should be a "truce of God" in industry during tho whole of 1930. At any rate, the Goulburn Synod has promised to work to that end, and if it succeeds in interesting other synods and other sects, and eventually brings about tho idealistic "truce of God," then it will have achieved a notable victory. There is no doubt that the present industrial unrest is causing apprehension in the minds of those who have the best interests of Australia at heart. Round table conferences have been held and they have proved unsuccessful, but there is just a suggestion that they have failed because of tho mental attitude in which they were approached. The objects of the conferences were admittedly excellent, but if in the minds of the conferring parties there has been a latent determination to concede as little as possible, failure to arrive at a modus vivendi was almost a foregone conclusion. Those people who have noted the failure of all means that have been tried to induce industrial peace have doubts whether tho Church would succeed. But they would probably be quite glad to give the Church an opportunity. Canon Gordon Hirst, of Cooma, who proposed the "truce of God" at the last meeting of the Goulbourn Synod, says that the resolution invites all sorts of ridicule and opposition, and no doubt a dozen reasons could be advanced to showthat it was wildly impracticable, but there was nothing in it more absurd than a temporary cessation of hostilities betweeiv armies in actual warfare. If such short armistices were not only possible, but even deemed necessary, it should not be Utopian to believe that a truce between men who were knit by the closest ties of country ancf kinship was within the bounds of reason at least. In the ordinary relationships of life it was invariably found that the spirit of conciliation accomplished far more than was possible with abuse and retaliation, and it was surely nearly time that they began to detect the fallacy and futility of industrial warfare.

The Goulbourn resolution, said Canon Hirst, might be visionary, but tho vision was worth contemplating. It would begin to fade immediately they started to think in terms of self-interest and entrench themselves behind the old ramparts of class and party. On the other hand it would take substantial form once they began to ask themselves whether, after all, goodwill and understanding between man and man was not worth the sacrifice of a little profit or the surrender of somo small gain. Absolute fairness and honesty was needed on both sides, the withholding of provocative legislation, a readiness to see the other fellow's point of view—all very idealistic —but life is always finest when it is most adventurous, and the worlijl has more than once been well served by the pursuit of an ideal that men of small faith have considered insane. The Goulbourn resolution has already attracted a great deal of attention, and it is likely to be discussed by other synods. Even if it brings the Church within closer touch of the problems that are exercising the world to-day, particularly the greatest of problems, that of industrial unrest, it will have served a valuable purpose. Not long ago Bishop Long, of Newcastle, made tho coal industry crisis the subject of his sermon at the Newcastle Cathedral, and he appealed for a spirit of conciliation on both sides.