TOYOHIKO KAGAWA

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 210, 3 June 1935, Page 6

TOYOHIKO KAGAWA

Religious Leader and Social Reformer NOTED SON OF JAPAN Ideal of Co-operative State A man who, though still in the forties, has left an abiding mark in the life of his nation, and is one of the bestknown Christian statesmen of the day, the Rev. Dr. Toyohiko Khgawa, of Japan, noted as evangelist, social reformer and labour leader, arrived at Wellington on Saturday afternoon in continuation of his month's tour of New Zealand. He already has visited Auckland and various other centres in the North Island, and after a full programme of public meetings leaves the capital on Thursday for the South Island. To meet Dr, Kagawa is to meet a short, unpretentious little man, who, almost carelessly dressed in the cheapest of black suits, displays no Oriental magnificence. He is not a polished speaker, but has a forceful platform manner. To talk with him for only a few.moments is to realise that you have met a vital personality, and that he knows probably better than you do the reason, for instance, why Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald’s second Labour Government fell In Great Britain. In half an hour you will understand that there must be very little in politics, sociology and philosophy that he has not read. Dr. Kagawa is a Christian statesman for the reason that probably more than any other of the great religious leaders of the time he is concerned with the translation into practical politics of the ethics of Christianity. He is no purely other-worldly Christian who asserts this as an ideal for consummation in a distant Utopian future. For him religion is no opiate of the masses; it is something which ought to give men the best life here and now. Ideal of Co-operative State. He is concerned, and he told a representative of “The Dominion” in an interview that he thinks the Church and the world ought to be concerned, with the realisation of the petition of the Lord’s Prayer that Gori’s will be done on ejirth as in Heaven, now, in history. And he gives his idea of the way he considers it can be done—by the organisation of men into co-operative associations, leading to the co-operative State and ultimately international cooperation through the League of Nations. Karl Marx, he considered, bad been right, generally, in his diagnosis of the ills of society, but that when he came to social therapeuty, healing, he had gone wrong in his economic interpretation of history. In the place of atheistic Communism Dr. Kagawa advances the ideal of the co-operative State —of the Christian co-operative State. The whole of life, and not merely one phase of it, ought to be organised on the lines of co-operative associations. He told how Japan had been faced with the two alternatives —social co-operation or revolution —and how attempts were being made in the direction of giving effect to the former on a nation-wide scale. In this connection Dr. Kagawa considered that something of great value had been lost when the guilds of mediaeval times were swept away in the Reformation. One gathered also that he thought highly of the type of guild Socialism advanced by the English political theorist, G. D. H. Cole, although he regretted that writer’s more recent turn to Marxian materialism. The Soviet system, he said, had turned labourers into slaves, and Russia had been forced last year to adopt cooperative ideas. It was only through co-operation that more freedom could be given the individual. He placed no faith in either Fascism or National Socialism as contributing anything of permanent value to the problem of maintaining social solidarity and at the same time giving the individual freedom. Need for Industrial Democracy. “Present political democracy,"' he said, “must be changed. It must be turped into an industrial democracy as well as a political.” Under the co-op-erative State there would be no panic and no depression and unemployment question. Talking of the Church in the world at the present time, Dr. Kagawa said Christianity had been too nationalistic. It had lacked cosmic-consciousness. There would be no solution of the problem of war until the people of the world learned to love each other more. There were those who made politics and economics and religion distinct spheres. That at the most was only GO per cent, consciousness about the world and not good enough. Speaking of Japan and the League of Nations, Dr. Kagawa emphasised that Japan had withdrawn from the League only as a political organisation. She would return to the political councils if Manchukuo were recognised by the nations as an independent State. Japan was the only independent nation in the East, and it was her aim, he said, to see China established as one also. Japan continued to take part in the League’s International Labour Office conferences. These, although earlier they had not promised much success, had become highly successful. Dr. Kagawa said he believed, not in free trade, which would Injure Britain, nor in protective trade, which would injure all nations, but in co-operative trade. Dominion “Next to Heaven.” “Some years ago Professor Namae, of a Tokio University, visited New Zealand, and when he returned he described it as ‘next to Heaven,’ ” Dr. Kagawa said. “I hear that you have had an unemployment question since then, and I am here to learn all I can about the country’s social conditions. New Zealand is a very fine country, and it has a wonderful climate." Dr. Kagawa, son of a secretary to the Privy Council of Japan, Is a Christian because of the influence on him in his youth of two American Presbyterian missionaries, and attracted attention at college in Tokio by attacking war at the time his nation was fighting Russia. His earliest work was done in Shinkawa, one of the slum districts of Kobe. He next organised the workers of the country to secure better conditions for them, formed the Japan Federation of Labour, led the 1021 dockyard strike in Kobe, and spent a term in prison as a result. He next turned his attention to the plight of 'the peasants, and formed the Japan Peasants’ Union. , When In 1023 Yokohama and twothlrds of Tokio were destroyed by earthquake be was appointed a member of the Imperial Economic Commission of rehabilitation. Then in 1030 when the depression hit Tokio he was invited by

the Mayor to become chief welfare officer at a salary of £lBOO a year. He refused the salary but did the work in an advisory capacity. One writer has summarised his economic aim as the evolutionary socialisation of capital. “The labour movements with which I relate myself,” he says, “have but three demands —a chance to live, a chance to work and a chance to show the marks of a man.” Labour in Japan to-day, he said, was united in two national federations, and the standard of the workers was being elevated day by day. Capitalistic interests were very much against the unions, but they bad been recognised by the Government and had secured factory and compensation laws. TEACHING OF CHRIST What it Has Done for Japan A survey of what Christianity had done for Japan was given by Dr. Kagawa, speaking in the Wellington Town Hall yesterday afternoon at a youth rally under the auspices of the Christian Youth Council and the Y.M.C.A. There was. an attendance of about 3000, the hall being packed to capacity some time before the hour and many being turned away. Mr. M. A. Tremewan, president of the Christian Youth Council, was in the chair. Christianity, said Dr. Kagawa, who was received with prolonged applause, had given Japan five things—the spirit of purity, of peace, of love, of respect for labour, and, above all, of personal piety. .Speaking of the first of the five points, he said that till about 40 years ago there had been widespread polygamy in the country. To-day, because .of the spirit of Christianity, it had gone. There had also been licensed prostitution which the Church bad fought and which, on April 1 last, had been abolished. The divorce rates, which formerly had been high, had been reduced to about one-third Of their previous total, and now numbered 11 per cent, of marriages. The spirit of peace and love had also come to Japan with Christianity, the speaker said. It had taught the Japanese that there was a greater love than instinctive, physical love. The; Japanese had previously found it hard to love criminals: and foreigners, but when Christ came He had given theip new power to love sinners and enemies. Respect for Women. “Buddhism and Confucianism told, us that women had no souls,” said Dr. Kagawa. "After Christianity clime we got the spirit of respect for women and girls.” The spirit of respect for labour was also a new thing. Buddhism had told people to live ascetic lives, but when Christianity came it taught that Jesus was a carpenter, so the Japanese had got a spirit of respect for labourers. The first unipn in Japan was organised in the basement room of a Unitarian Church, and the first Labour movement Was launched by Christians. The first missionaries to Japan had come 75 years ago from England, and a month later one bad come from America. With that Japan began to change. The standard of Japanese ethics had been elevated bit by bit, and all religions were active in the countiy today. Dr. Kagawa said he had been surprised to find that in Australia and ‘New Zealand the religious atmosphere was quiet in contrast to that in Japan. Japan had been faced with the alternatives of religion or revolution, and the Christians had had to face that position. As a result there had been a religious renaissance. The Kingdom of God movement had been launched in three field's—evangelism, education and the Christian co-operative movement. The last-named was to meet materialistic Communism, which Dr. Kagawa emphasised he was not to be taken as confusing with idealistic Communism. Christians in Cabinet. Japan was changing, he said. Of the thirteen Ministers in the last Cabinet seven had been men from Christian families. It was sometimes asked why the growth in the numbers of the Christians in Japan was not more rapid. It had to be remembered, Dr. Kagawa said, that over 300 years ago there bad been a Jesuit insurrection und it had ■been written in the Japanese history that Christianity was a bad thing. If one ignored that it was ignoring the psychology of the Japanese. Dr. Kagawa then went on to speak of his own life as a boy, at college, and his work in the Shinkawa slums. lie bad lived in a vacant house, the rent for which was cheap because a labourer had been killed in one of the rooms, lie had then gone to America to study and on returning had begun to organise unions a- •’ co-operative associations. East and West Linked Together. "You may ask where is God?” Dr. Kagawa said. "In your own body you have life and consciousness. That was given by God. It did not appear by chance. You can never doubt that you live and that life and that consciousness of life was given by God. Though I have never seen the face of God, I feel the power and love of God,” Dr. Kagawa concluded. Introducing Dr. Kagawa, the chairman, Mr. Tremewan, said they had been inspired and thrilled by the work he had done, not so much because he was a great preacher and writer, labour leader and social reformer, but because of his love for Christ and his fellowmen, which was the thing which linked together the East and West in one great brotherhood. Archdeacon W. Bullock, the Rev. F. 11. Wilkinson, moderator of the Presbytery of Wellington, and Mrs. Craig McKenzie took part in the service. Mr. H. Temple White gave an organ recital for 15 minutes before the opening of the meeting. A solo was sung by Miss Edna Parton, and a duet by Miss Joy ►Sutherland and Mr. H. F. Gardiner.