Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1926. "REVOLUTIONARY AND SUBVERSIVE"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1926. "REVOLUTIONARY AND SUBVERSIVE"

The strange blend of flippancy and Pharisaism with which Mr. Lloyd 1 George endeavoured on Sunday last to show thatH/hrist would have adopted exactly the same attitude to the General Strike that he did himself and would perhaps have attracted the hostile attention of the Government and the police has apparently drawn no reply from those at whom his satire was directed. It is of course possible that some of them may be reserving their fire until to-morrow in order that whatever advantage their assailant derived from taking his politics into the pulpit might not bo lacking to their reply. Mr. Baldwin at St. Paul's or Lord Oxford at the Abbey, in defence of the Cabinet or the "Shadow Cabinet," would have been sure of a full congregation and a good hearing, and they would have had no more difficulty than their critic in giving to their discourses a • turn appropriate to the day. But anybody who searches Monday's paper for a report of anything of the kind is likely to be disappointed, and it is well that he should be. The more of the religious spirit-and the less of religious controversy that we have in our politics the better. A retort in kind to Mr. Lloyd George's invidious claims and his invidious aspersions on his opponents would provoke a controversy that could do neither politics nor religion any good and might do them both much harm.

That much-misunderstood precept, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"—intended to prevent the Jews from breaking their heads against the irresistible might of Roman rule but misapplied to dissuade the Christian from playing his part in the politics of a free democracy —has nevertheless its legitimate applications to-day, and this is one of them. Public life makes an appeal to the Christian which he cannot honourably resist, but he will not be helped in the discharge of his duty by the profession of a higher light than that vouchsafed to his opponents, or by deploring their heathen blindness, or by taking up any invidious aud irrelevant challenge that they may throw down. The objects of Mr. Lloyd George's attack are therefore wise not to exaggerate the importance of his little outburst in the Welsh Baptist Chapel, London, by answering him according to his folly. A single sentence, however, at the end of our cabled report lends itself to a less personal and more fruitful discussion. Mr. Lloyd George's remark that "probably the Home Secretary would have had Christ watched as a dangerous character" looks in its immediate context like nothing more than a gibe at the arbitrariness of the police under "Jix's" instructions, but a . broader significance is suggested by.the concluding sentence.

All Christ's doctrines, paid Mr. Lloyd George, were revolutionary, subversive, and disintegrating like all growth.

What exactly does Mr. Lloyd George meau by this comprehensive yet cryptic utterance? In a broad sense it would no doubt be true that the teaching of Christ has revolutionised human relations,' and standing alone or in another context the statement would hardly have called for remark. But the remark does not stand alone, and the context is peculiar. Mr. Lloyd George was speaking of a great social and industrial upheaval which, in the opinion of the Government and an overwhelming majority of the nation, would, if successful, have been subversive of constitutional authority and have effected a revolution. Mr. Lloyd George, who dissented from that view, first suggests that the Home Secretary would, "if Christ had come to London," have suspected him "as a dangerous character, preaching, doctrines subversive to our institutions," and then adds that "all Christ's doctrines were revolutionary and subversive." If Mr. Lloyd George's words have been accurately: reported, and if he really meant what he said, his words confirm as his own opinion that the success of the strike would have been "subversive to our institutions," and that Christ, whoso doctrines are always subversive, would have approved it. It is an extraordinary and almost incredible result, far worse iudeed than the bad taatc, verging on sacrilege, to which we have previously referred. Can Mr. Lloyd George really have meant that he approved of the General Strike," and that Christ must also have approved of it because it was revolutionary and subversive? The first of these propositions is inconsistent with the first of Mr. Lloyd George's declarations after the striko began. The second is 10 monstrous that one

must hope that some unfortunate twist hag been given to the meaning in the process of condensing. But even if a liberal discount be allowed for hasty talk and imperfect reporting, the general drift of Mr. Lloyd George's eloquence seems to indicate that he is getting into his stride for that visit to Eussia which he has for some time been contemplating. Though "every facility for a thorough tour of investigation was assured early in the year, the Soviet Government will surely provide a still heartier welcome for a visitor who can talk of revolution and subversion and disintegration in so familiar and even flattering a fashion. But ho will have to make the religious foundation of his revolutionary eloquence less conspicuous before he gets to Moscow. The Bolsheviks have a clearer appreciation of the true relation between Christianity and revolution than he showed in his speech on Sunday last.' Lecky, in hjs "Democracy and Liberty," quotes the Following declaration on. the subject from the "Sozial Demokrat," which was then the organ of militant German Socialism: — The Socialistic State will never be realiseiJ except by a violent revolution, and it is our duty to spread this conviction through all classes. ... Christianity is the greatest enemy of Socialism. When God is expelled from human brains, what is called the Divine Grace will at the same time be banished; and when the heaven above appears nothing more than an immense falsehood men will seek to create for themselves a heaven below. What was preached in Berlin a generation ago is being rapidly realised in Eussia. It was reported in February that 364 of the Leningrad churches had been "officially closed" since the Bevolution, and that "all the shrines in the fronts of houses are also listed for removal." In the broad sweep of his eloquence, Mr. Lloyd George has confused entirely different things. There is a Socialism of love and a Socialism of hate, and one of the things that the latter hates worst is Christianity. In spite of Mr. Lloyd Ge vorgo, it is by evolution rather than revolution that Christianity proceeds. He may have a better appreciation of the distinction after his visit to Eussia.