A MASTER PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 69, 19 September 1944, Page 6

A MASTER PLAN

Christian" order

TROUBLES OF MANKIND

The ideals underlying the Christian Order movement were -the-theme of an address given by Canon \V. Averill, of Auckland, at the Wellington Rotary Clubs weekly luncheon today. As Christian Order appealed to him ■said the speaker, it sought to stress Uie-necessity for winning the peace as .wen- as the war if the world was to be released from the vicious circle of which war was "an essential part Winning the peace required fne same concentration of effort, the same total mobilisation of man-power, the same careful planning, and the same personal sacrince as-war. What, then, had Christian Order io do with the winning of the peace? It offered to man a ■ master plan based on one of its- central doctrines, the sacredness of personality, the primacy of the individual in the scale o± values.

REVERSAL OF NATURAL ORDER,

If you will focus all the troubles of mankina- down to one' point, you will find, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has so often told us in his various .writings, that they are due to a reversal of the natural order, the granting of primacy to money, with things second, and human ' persons coming in a very poor third. That reversal of the natural order leading to human beings having to fit into the requirements of both things and money has led to the almost universal sense of -frustration which manifests nself in various forms of demoralisation. Insobriety, sexual troubles, and so on are but symptoms of a much deeper-seated trouble."

Canon Averill said that Christian Order presented its master plan as the only method whereby justice, peace, and decency were possible. That plan envisaged the restoring to man of primacy in the scale of relative values, so that, first and foremost, would come man with his needs and opportunities, then things organised for man's welfare, and, thirdly, money as the.servant of man in the production and distribution of things. In thp implementing of the plan, there- were various objectives to be attacked, just as there were in war lines to be breached before a break-through was possible. Four of those limited objectives were:—(l) Provision for men displaced by machines. The whole question of the displacement of the human element by the machine had not been faced, up to the beginning of the present war at any rate. According to one estimate, machines installed" throughout the world since the beginning of the century could do the work of 3,000,000,000 men, and they were progressively needing less and less man-power. There, had been a vast displacement of man-power, which had been allowed to .rot except when the needs of war had to be met. Man must be enabled.do live by the iriachihe, not to suffer, because of it. The second objective was the limitation of production to the requirements of its natural market, The great difficulty of the system under which they had been working was that machinepowered industry destroyed its natural market because millions of men and their dependants were below the bread-line anil unable to consume, and industry then naturally sought to dispose -cS its surplus in overseas markets. Thus came about what were known as trade wars, attempting to sell overseas more than was taken in return, the "favourable trade balance" which was a contributing cause of war. Somehow the industry of each country must be limited approximately to the requirements of the people' ■" in that country, with due provision for ■•exports to bring back in return commodities and raw materials which could riot be found or produced otherwise. ■ !

I, .The third, objective was the provision of a. monetary system for the production and distribution of goods and services which would not involve public debt, and the fourth was the provision within industry geared for mass production of scope for individual initiative and incentive for craftsmanship. .■____. • TOTAL MOBILISATION. . "It is not the province of Christian Order to blueprint details for the attainment, of these objectives," said Canon Averill, "but to point to them, to organise the public .conscience behind them, and to call upon experts to address themselves to devising ways and means whereby they can be attained. The-success of this master plan requires total, .mobilisation. . President Roosevelt and. Mr. Churchill at Quebec have just hammered out a master plan for the defeat of Japan .requiring the co-operation of all in the Armed Forces [and,on the home front. We have to guard against the tendency to .think that everything will come right automatically when the enemy is defeated There is a danger in that connection m such pronouncements as the Atlantic Charter in tending to lull us into false satisfaction and false security We have to remember that the League of Nations and Woodrow Wilson's Fouri£i nx Yt OmS s were -equally as good as the Atlantic Charter, but failed chiefly because the. majority of people .thought they could;'leave it to somebody else.' ihe Atlantic Charter may well become a. dead letter also unless it is backed cJnStedlJoS? 110 °pinion and

lnv ffg^the need for Personal loyalty to the greatest Leader of all and-for personal consecration to His master plan, the speaker • said that SSw?^i^ der£ efined "by which all the objectives he had menS might be attained,: namely the wfthod Pf cooperation by all, by capital and labour, employer and employee "WiThouTtw md anual •■workS without that personal consecration" he continued, "we will get in peace as defaufterfS 115! 5 ' -^borato^ant cteiaulteis, people continuing to pur,s"e.Personal and sectional interests X hh uc se*-.what that has .ledTo on' the other side of the'world, a blood bath which does not commend itself to fn/ ? e 1 Y 1-t]^ ut common se*s c or feeling at. all. We can do better than tint though the-Christian Order method ■SulrS ethSf'^ c°-°Perati°n wlSch re! qi" , s^at ■ personal consecration which alone can attain the Si with out the other objectionable SJisS". . civ istian Order seeks to win the peace, and to build a world" n nconrS ance with God's plan, a. World we can Sren? With°Ut W^s

ENCOURAGING RESULTS As was the case on vestPTviTtrv t«,.,,j ChSS SS erS SSoS unristian Order campaign met with encouraging responses to Their addresses to various sections of the com mumty today. In most cases wiS?e necessary employers either extended the normal spell periods or made other time available to enable • workers to participate m the meetings, and the £nwn Sti tak,t* in c addresses waS ■shown by the number of ■ questions asked of speakers. Meetings for business men and others were also largely attended and encouraging results were reported.