MATERIAL VALUES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 131, 4 June 1924, Page 5

MATERIAL VALUES

PREMIER'S IDEALISM

WEALTHY PEOPLE WHO ARE

ABJECTLY POOR

CLASS DISTRIBUTION.

(FftOU OCE OWH CORIiSSFONDJKT.)

LONDON, 11th April.

Mr. Ramsay MacDoriald has resolved not to speak at non-political meetings

during his term -of office, nor at meetings held on Sunday. But he had an appointment with the National Free Church Congress to fulfil, which was nlade before the Labour Party came into power, and so last week we had the rather unusual spectacle of a Prime Minister addressing an audience of Free Churchmen, expressing his particular form of idealism, and condemning the materialism of the day. Apart from the 1000 official delegates, nearly 2000 of the general public obtained admission to the meeting.

The first great problem that they as Christians had to face, he said, was that of poverty. The problem of poverty wa,s npt the problem of inequality. "I know people enormously rich Who are abjectly poor. The problem of poverty is the problem of the sacrifices that good men apd women have to undergo. Sacrifice ' not of material things, sacrifice not of ideals, not of wishes, but sacrifices that entail the crucifixion of qualities which, w e have by virtue of the fact that we have souls. So long as that poverty existed, Christians must be uncomfortable, and are abjectly poor. The problem of poverty is that of the degradation of men and women. The problem o£ poverty is the problem of the sacrifices that gave rise to pity, which issued in charity, but when they discovered—as they so often did—that the sacrifice was not merely accidental, but merely individual, but part and parcel of an inter-related, co-ordinated, organic system, then that pity did not issue, aud' ought not to issue, merely in ch'arity; it ought to issue in' a great conception of social reconstruction by way of evolutionary socialism..

Another problem to be dealt with was that of human values. To-day, in nine cases out of ten, people valued each other for .mere material-*' possessions. "When people want appreciation what do they do,?" he asked. They go. and buy honours now for the first time in their lives.; ' Their names are familiar in the honours list in a newspaper. That is the first association they have ever had with anything that is honourable, people who are rich, who can give great; dinners, people who are extravagant, people who are ostentatiously vulgar people, who have, none of that finer, inner sense of the gentleman, are too often the powerful people of these, modern times.of which we are so rashly inclined to boast. This age, instead of subduing nature to man, was subduing man to nature. If another war broke out the fact that chemistry and physics have been, conquered would, instead of making his .task easier to end the war,' only niake the soldiers' task easier to destroy peoples. "This is a materialistic . age, and there is no use in talking humbug about it," declared Mr. MacDonald. • . . ' ~ • • THE OLD SCOTCH SUNDAY.; "There is," he continued, "overindulgence in recreation to-day. There is an incapacity to spend a quiet Sunday. lam amazed at so many-of my friends saying the 014 Scotch Sabbath was a burden. Sometimes I cannot observe it, and I blame myself very often for not observing it, but I would like to see a state of society in which every miyn and woman preferred the old Scotch Sunday to the modern French one. Whether ypu have Tory, (Liberal, or Labour ■ Governments, you cannot do much with people who must be amused and entertained by somebody 'else, by a gramophone or something else, and who have'npt the capacity to spend the time profitably with themselves. These things are evidences of general evils. .There is something fundamentally wrong, are losing the sense of what really human value', is. We are seeking far too much after superficialities, gold braid, things hanging from the lappet of your. coatSj.right honourables—(laughter)—which occasionally ara wrong dishqnourabies." He, claimed that they could ncjt approve the solution of their social problems unless they remembered that the spiritual must be the predomin-. ant. "What the world is now suffering from is that we have not the courage to go right (Jown to. the sources of evils, instead of patching here and there. It may take us a little longer and. require more patience, but let us go at the big thing." " ' ' A LAZY MAN: "I am a lazy man," said Mr. MacDonald. "I never, do a stroke of work that I can avoid. That is why one finds oneself so very busy.'.' TUo bond of unity in the .community was the spiritual bond which existed -because they were possessors of a common soul and the intention of a common destiny. "I am . one of those people who believe in t|ie Socialist faith," he said. "I am neither ashamed of it nor afraid of it." Spcialism was a thing that had got Uvp values —one was as an electioneering cry and the other was a philosophy and system of life. "As au electioneering cry the less you know about it the better for yourselves," he remarked. "You will be able to talk most about it, and in perfect innocence contribute the largest volume to Socialist criticism." As the material embodiment of the spiritual conception of unity in''community it was a "philosophy, a system, a , compre^ hensive' thought,' and it was based upon th/ Gospels. ' " "We are all inclined to think in terms of class," went on the Prime Minister. "I am supposed to be one of those who does that. " I do liot want to enter into competition with any of you, but I doubt r if anybody here hag fought against that idea more persistently than I have.' This idea of class is poisonous to the social mind. We have classes. " When' we are wiser, when we are more moral, that will have disappeared— not by a sort pf hugger-niugger equality, but when We have created a state of society in which qualities, tastes, differences'will be so. naturally fpjlqwed that you will ; npt be qt all' conscious that a person fallowing p.thpr tastes and other qualities belongs to a different category of humanity from, yourself. ORIGIN OF CfiASS DISTINCTION. "The moro men aro driven, in up,on their own qualities th e less capable ("are they pf creating "distinctions betwee'n themselves and other people." It is only when you have "no "quality to boast"of yourself that you %6 "and draw your cheque for a, suit of dpf,hes which' marks you off from your fellows. That is the only thing you can do.' It has its good sides, because (ho man of no distinction feels his poverty not only in (ha eves of God but in the eyes 'of man'.' He , knows he cannot cheat god* bo he dost I

not try, but he knows by his experience that he can cheat you. So he does. That is fundamentally the origin of ciass / distinction. * "I wish'l could .appeal to thd interests of this nation," he continued, "to pur-, sue methods in accordance with moral categories. We are threatened with strikes, lock-outs, disputes, and disturbances. How childish it all is! How foolish it all is! What has happened '! Why is there no mutual confidence. Surely these things can be arbitrated; surely these things can be considered; surely there are minds and heads thatcan get together and say: 'This is the best that can be done.' That is' the way to overcome differences. But what-■ has happened is that the two sides— not owing to the follies of one—have lostconfidence in each other, aud they consider the only way to get out of that is to have an occasional light, which is" a loss to everybody. (Cheers.)-- We shaii" . never get a.way from that stage un,til \vp put materialism on one side. and ; re-' ! member that man lives for.his soul; lives" for justice, and not for his pocket" FACING FACTS. Several useful correctives to this I speech duly followed after its delivery. Thus the "Evening Standard": "Mr. MacDonald was sincere, eloquent, cloudy, rather platitudinous, earnestly insistent on the moralities, and on the need for a spiritual awakening as the foundation of-everything. No one can quarrelwith his precepts. The difficulty is to mako practice square with them. • . "When the Prime Minister, for inst- . ance, speaks of the idea of class as; be- ' ing 'poisonous to the social mind/itls fair to remind him that he is the leader of a Pacty that is based on nothing so much as an exaggerated . class-conscious-ness. Take the idea of. class out of the Labour, propaganda and how much is left? In thesamo way, he drops a pious tear on the folly and childishness of strikes and talks of arbitration and restoring mutual confidence, one cannot quite forget that . there are those behind him Who preach industrial warfare, and seem to regard peace between Capital and Labour as something unnatural." . ... . ...;; .