NEW ORDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 8

NEW ORDER

CONFERENCE OPENED

ADDRESS BY DR. WILLIAMS

An attendance which practically filled the Y.W.C.A. Hall was present at the opening session this morning of the interim conference of the Dominion Reconstruction Movement. The Rev. Canon Averill presided. The conference was declared open by the Mayor, Mr. J. A. C. Allum. who referred to the ambitious nature of the programme of subjects for discussion. Slowly but surely, he said, the lot of man had been improved, but, unhappily, there had always been some who had retarded progress by plunging people into wars. It must be remembered that Hitler desired to destroy spiritual things. Therefore the task of all was to inculate the ideals of personal service to mankind. Spiritual, Moral and Social The purpose of the conference, the chairman stated, was to endorse and extend work similar to that which had been done in England and to apply it to the needs and possibilities of this country. The scope of the conference had purposely been drawn wider than that of the English conference in order to include the interests and contributions of all who were working for the spiritual, moral and social advancement of society.

With regard to undertaking reconstruction while the war was still in progress, the speaker went on to say. that it was realised that winning the war involved two aspects—first, the quantity and quality of fighting material, and, secondly, the morale of the civilian people. The only way to retain morale was to demonstrate that the privations of war were worth while because they were making for the building of a new world.

A message from Archbishop Averill wishing the conference success in its deliberations was read by the chairman. * Physical Well-Being 1 An address on physical well-being was delivered by Dr. I'lric Williams, who said that disease was the name of that order which troubled man individually or collectively in his body, mind, soul and material state. Disease was not something which attacked right-living and rightthinking people. It was more or less a gradual degenerating process going on within the individual or the mass, and it was due to a failure to comply with the requirements of well-being. There was no such thing as acute disease. There was such a thing as acute illness, but this was commonly Nature's method of correcting chronic disease. The more good health was pursued the more was it likely to elude one. The great fallacy to-ciay was that it was always taken for granted that disease was some kind of inevitable entity. There was no such thing as prevention, and treatment was rarely required. What the law of life required was that man should refrain from those things which caused disease.

A report on health was presented by Mr. T. W. Dick, of Wellington, and was considered in committee.