DICTATOR OF PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 39, 14 August 1940, Page 6

DICTATOR OF PEACE

CHALLENGE FOR RECOGNITION

Such times as these were distressing, said Lieutenant-Commissioner J. Evan Smith, at the Citizens' Intercession Service yesterday. "To feel the earth trembling beneath your feet, and to see old familiar structures rocking and trembling is very unpleasant, and more than unpleasant if you happen to be amongst the folk upon whom some of the structures crash, bringing loss, insecurity, and despair," he continued. "How are we as Christian men and women to adjust ourselves to it?" In the present world situation there was something to challenge us with a new sense of urgency and crisis in our obedience and loyalty to God. "Men have become more and more secularised in their outlook, and in consequence have been losing their perspective. They have been losing the sense of God, of the absolute loyalties in life which should at all costs be obeyed," he continued. .

MAN-MADE DEITIES

"One proof of this is man's tendency to set up a dictatorship of his own; to create his own deity, to create his own sacraments in such things as the Swastika and coloured shirts and uplifted arms. But these are just pathetic substitutes for the Eternal, and being substitutes they never give permanent satisfaction." Throughout all ages the symbols of power of the Caesars, Kaisers, and Napoleons, with their countless legions, unbending law, and ruthless power, had been the reeking spear, pillaged cities wasted lands, and slaughtered men, women, and children, with liberties crushed out of the hearts of the free. But all had failed to bring about a better state of things or obtain domination of the world. "How important it is that amidst all the travail and confusion of these times, amidst man's pathetic groping for a .substituted and tottering dictator state, men and women of God should stand forth as never before to make plain, above all, to the youth of today that we have a Dictator, we have One whose word is absolute, we have a Kingdom for which we are ready to live, and if need be to die. No man is fit to live until he has found that for which he would gladly die. God is challenging us today to make Him Dictator." •

"OBVIOUSLY UNFAIR"

SHOULD APPLY TO ALL

"If the Court of Arbitration was guided solely by the increase in the cost of living there is certainly some justification for a 5 per cent, increase in wages, but if the general economic and financial position is also to- be considered the justification disappears," the Dominion Council of the People's Movement states.

"The Minister of Finance, Me Nash, has clearly stated that we in New Zealand have been spending more than the value of our production amd any sensible person knows this canno4 continue indefinitely. However, assuming the justification and the soundness of our financial structure, then we insist on the necessity in common equity of: extending the order to all workers, not overlooking temporary civSL servants. It is also essential that guaranteed prices to primary producers be

reviewed.

"The whole position is so obviously unfair that no good purpose wiai be served to examine further the tfacts of the situation, but we would emphasise that this is another example of sectional interests being allowefl to dominate the national interests. The ruling emphasises the necessity of a readjustment of our wage system and a reconstruction on a basis bearing a direct relationship to the true value of production and services with an eojttitable distribution to all engaged therein. "It is easy and too obvious to advocate only an extension of hosurs which no doubt would assist us to regain equilibrium. What is more necessary is the will throughout the nation to take a lead from the Labour leaders of England and work like hell. Tfcis is necessary not only to enable ,*us to carry out our war obligations, but to support our present economy and avoid the distressful circumstances that would inevitably follow the effects of inflation."