Labour Notes

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 1211, 10 December 1919, Page 3

Labour Notes

LABOUR'S HIGHER PLANE. MENACE OF MATERIALISM. At the International Conference on Labour and Religion, at the Browning Hall, Walsworth (says The Times), Mr G. N. Barnes, M.P., presided, the subject for discussion being "The Perils of the Workers from Materialism."

Mr Barnes, in opening the proceedings, said that never in the history of the world had there been a more striking illustration of the dangers of materialism than during the last "four years, but the country had. proved Uiat there was something in mankind that could not be bludgeoned, something that gun? could not kill. Even organised religion, however, had to some extent become an echo of Individualistic teaching, and the churches had lost their power, or otherwise how could they have tolerated a condition of tilings which was so obviously leading to a catastrophe? The war had scarcely begun when profiteers saw in It. a chance f»r material gain. Fabulous fortunes had been amassed by individuals out of the materialistic scramble. He was sorry to see now a conflict of a more menacing character. We were gutting accustomed now to a struggle of organisation instead of individuals. and that struggle, unless it was wellguided, might be even more hurtful because more far-reaching in lis results.

"This is an age of organisation," said Mr Barnes. "If it is rightly used the results ought to contribute to the common good and equalise the chances of life. But if organisation be lopsided, or controlled by those who are animated only by materialistic considerations, then it may jr.;t a strangle-hold on the community." Some organisations, he added, were getting under the control of those who had little idea of reciprocal service. Some, he was afraid, on the labour side, were getting under the control of those who wanted t.) pviil down the nillttrs of the Slate, on the off chance that something would ..rise from the ruins more to Iheir 3>.ing. Mr Barnes went on to speak of lead-

• is of Labour, some of whom, he said, had been to Oxford or Cambridge, or some other place, who thought themselves superior persons, and posed as guides, philosophers and friends to people who hud often got more sense than the guides and philosophers themselves. This, he was afraid, was having a bad effect on simple-minded workers. The workshop was becoming a different place from what it used to be. The best time of his life was spent in the workshop. He had worked for greater leisure and a greater share of the world's good* for the workmen. and there was a joy and satisfaction for these things, but he never believed that the materialistic doctrines of rancour and ill-will would put things right. But that was what was now believed by an increasing number. He would not blame the workman, considering the conditions in which he lived. All this was inevitable unless there was helpful c- ntact between the workmen and other classes.

Yet, with it all, the workman felt that there was something In life which wealth ;tnd possessions could not give him. He felt that eating and drinking and livinir in line houses was not the ••nil of all things. He wanted his 1111, but, after that, companionship and cooperation to satisfy that something in our nature which ought to be the best of us.

Many regarded the Labour problem, Mr Barnes proceeded, almost exclusively as a wages and stomach question. It was nothing of the kind. It was a religious question —a question of man's proper place as a man, and not merely as a wage earner. Commonsense was asserting Itself over the materialistic forces that had been gathering during the last few years. Six or eight months ago he was a little alarmed by a feeling on waking up In the morning that anything might happen during the day. But he thought we had now got over the worst. We had now to rally all the forces which were disposed to lift life and labour to a higher plane. Mr P. H. Stead, warden of Browning Settlement, and organiser of the conference, said that their joy and hope had been that the workers were exempt from the curse of materialism that had been the moral ruin of the upper and middle classes. Old Labour leaders who had borne the heat and burden of the day had told him that they found among the younger workers a greed of gain utterly irrespective of the welfare, of their own class and still less of the community. Alderman Shepherd, the Labour Lord Mayor of Bristol, said that while the peopleodamoured for their rights, they must see that they performed their duties. The conference then ended.