The New Religion.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18525, 29 October 1925, Page 8

The New Religion.

" Politics could be viewed very " sncredl}*," said Councillor Cyde* Carr at Tuesday's meeting of the City Council, when defending the Labour Party's light to hold meetings on Sundays. " Every activity of his life," he added, " was a religions 'activity." This is not by any means the first time it has been suggested that the Labour Party is really less a political party than a new and improved Christian Church, but hitherto those who have claimed for the Labour movement the veneration due to the Gospels have as a rule been plain laymen. Whether the suggestion gains any forces from its repetition by one who actually is a clergyman we shall not be alone in doubting. There are many religions in the world, but this new one which is being recommended to us is the only one we have ever heard of which is founded on class-hatred and whieh works mainly by force and fraud. One of its cardinal doctrines is that agreements solemnly made may be broken whenever it may seem profitable to break them. Its leaders have often enough given practical demonstrations of their faith in this matter, and even within the past few weeks they have supported the seamen who, in defiance of their contracts, endeavoured to inflict the most serious damage on the people of New Zealand by strangling the Dominion's oversea trade. Nor does the new religion impose upon its disciples that rule which makes other religions so burdensome to the aspiring soul —the rule that lies shall be avoided, and especially lies which will injure innocent people. We have seen the leaders of the Labour Party deliberately concocting a false story concerning a supposed proposal by the Government to cut down the wages of the workers. The He has been completely refuted over and over again, but fidelity to their peculiar gospel has obliged these Labour leaders to stick ■ manfully to their lie and shame the devil of Truth. These are only two, the most recent, examples of the beauty of the new doctrine. It may appear to -ome people that tho Labour movement is holy and its leaders h it'll and noble, but to a majority the claim to respect as a religion which is made for it will appear to be nauseous. For the plain truth, is that revolutionary Labour 13 a vicious, unprincipled, predatory party which tights with poisoned weapons and will stick at nothing in pursuit of its aim to destroy the rights of property and the efficiency of the 'world*

Politics and Plunder. The curious perversion of the Liberals that politics means plunder when you ■win and victimisation when you lose was revealed again at one of Mr Holland'.-- meetings on Tuesday night. Tt in not merely unjust, but preposterously absurd, that any candidate on the Government side should have to defend the Reform Party from the charge involved in the question put to Mr Holland. The mere fact that Mr Forbes and Mr H. E. Holland

have both specifically denied that the Government has been influenced by Party considerations in allocating publie expenditure, and are on record to that effect, means that any such question is answered before it is asked. It in fact could not be a.skcd by anyone who. reads the newspapers intelligently and has not been corrupted by the Liberal tradition. But if there icere any justification for suggesting, or even supposing, that the Reform Party's practice in such a matter is no belter than the practice it found established when it drove the Liberals out, it would be very unintelligent of the electors of Canterbury to vote Lib; n again. For of course the Liber. 1 will never again be a majority in Canterbury or anywhere. No one even pretends to believe that they arc going to be the next Government, and although Mr Holland was not serious in suggesting that the sure way to get better treatment for Christchurch is to vote for those who will control the public purse, he could say such a thing seriously, and should say it, if there were even, a tincture of truth in the things the Canterbury Liberals are saying about the North Island. The amusing fact is, of course, that Wellington Liberals are saying the same thing about the South Island —a place they describe as the home of vested interests sheltering under the protecting wing of the Reform Government. But the amusing fact about Liberals alAvays is that their parochialism kills their sense of the ridiculous. Not only are they incapable of talking- about politics except in terms of plunder: they are' incapable of remembering that sweeping charges against other districts involve their friends there. Put them on the North Canterbury Progress League and they forget their friends in South Canterbury or in North Auckland; make them members of the Industrial Association and they forget that there are Liberal farmers. Mr Holland was quite right in saying that if a. spoils-to-the-victors policy were in force still, Canterbury should vote Reform; but it should also vote Reform if it wants to keep such a policy as far away from our national life as it has been during the last three years, and it will not achieve its object in any other way.