THE CHURCH AND THE SLUMS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20907, 14 July 1933, Page 9

THE CHURCH AND THE SLUMS.

TO THE SDtTOB 0» THS P*e99. Sir, —The Rev. H. O. Hanby's interpretation of "a lady novelist's" effort is typical of the ecclesiastical mind—a "dog in the manger" attitude. The information he gives regarding the Archbishops' pastoral appeal and the various activities undertaken under church auspices to relieve the slum problems is mere window-dressing. Your correspondent fails to tell us that slums exist because of the system under which we starve in the midst of plenty. Like Mr H. D. Acland's lime, all efforts of the church will became "capitalised." That the existence of slums is a "direct challenge and call to the church" is true, and none the less true to every decent-thinking person. Does the church desire to monopolise virtue? Mr Hanby quotes extensively, but does not tell us the cure, does not say how the evil is to be overcome. Yet some little seems to have occurred, but Mr Hanby can take it that the moment the activities of the church menace "vested interests" the church will very soon back "discreetly into (he shadows." Anyhow, what the church has already done appears like a pea on a mountain. The slum problem i 3 not one for institutions or individuals to deal with. It is a national affair: a national responsibility. And as the state is the "system there would not appear to be much hope of a change until the "system is changed One feels one would like to peruse the balance-sheets of the enterprises mentioned by Mr Hanby. interest rates may below- but is anybody making a profit out of it? Is the Church making a profit out of it. If some of us received free gifts of money we could loan it at very low interest and still make more money than we could with the same capital on the open market. There are very few minds keener than those of church dignitaries, and whoever heard of a church going bankrupt unless by an "act of God." The "lady novelist" may have been a "little late in her protest, but she was not born 193u years ag°Charity stinks in the nostrils of every self-respecting person, be it given by the church or any body or anything else. Men want work and wages to provide their homes, and it naturally follows that in a state of '•economic democracy" they would not choose slums in which to The rhurch treats symptoms and pretends it is treating causes. Why, the very undertakings of which Mr Hanby lens us are evidence sufficient n themselves that the present economic 5m is the cause. Why does the Church not attack the cause? Is it hSse the "philosophy of pelf' Ste for more than the philosophy of ffsemon on the MountT-Ws. etc.. NOT AN ATHEIST. July 13, 1933.

GERMANY AND NEW GUINEA. to ihi sntToa or ute mess. Sir, —The extraordinary suggestion that Australia should, in consideration of being protected by Germany presumably against the invasion of Japanese, cede back to that power her pre-war colony in New Guinea, must have astounded most people in Australia and New Zealand. I cannot for the life of me understand how such a proposal could be seriously made by any responsible man. The leopard does not change his spots, nor has the Teuton changed his militaristic mentality as the world hoped or expected he would after the debacle of German aspirations for world conquest In 1918. The Hitler regime in Germany to-day sees the Junker again in the saddle, under another name, but the same old Junker. Indeed, but for the traditional susceptibility of Germany to be dragooned by political sergeant-majors, the emergence of the Hitler tyranny would not have been possible in a country distinguished for its Intellectual qualities. Under Hitler we shall see the resurgence of the old Bismarckian ideals, and colonial expansion was one of them. If, as suggested, Germany got a foothold again in the Pacific, it is not difficult to foresee the future trouble there. Cannot anyone see that at any time when she imagined her "Day" had come again, she would say to Australia: "I am tired of acting as policeman for you. I will take you over and incorporate you in the German Empire." Are we going to entertain such a nightmare as the proposal conjures up? There is this further. The very proposal postulates that the British Empire has reached such a stage of decrepitude that she cannot hold or protect her own possessions. The whole British race will reject with scorn any such idea. If the Empire cannot be held by the strong right arm of the British race it can never be held by mercenaries, and any attempt in that direction will be the Immediate prelude to the crash of the world-wide Empire. We do not want Germany or Hitlerism nearer than it is—and that is too near. Anyone who has German sympathies would do better to help to arouse the German people to a sense of the tyranny that at present is making their country, as mine has already been made, a tragic example of the failure (temporarily) of democracy and of a people cowed with submission to a damnable tyranny.— Yours, etc., NINO DI SOMMA. July 13, 1933.