CHURCH AND LABOUR

Grey River Argus, 18 May 1938, Page 10

CHURCH AND LABOUR

Archbishop & Priest PRAISE FOR “LABOR DAILY”. SYDNEY, May 10. In a leading article the “Labor Daily” states: —Two pronouncements made at the week-end by leading Catholic clerics are of interest to all sections of the community. The Coadjutor-Archbisnop of Sydney, Dr. Gilroy, urged the Federal Government to provide a more generous scheme of maternity endowment and assistance to children in order to check the falling birth-rate. “Why should our own babies be less assisted than migrants?” he asked. “In view of the immense difficulties facing parents, the Government should aim at ever increasing the bonus for Australian-born children.” The Australian Labour Movement, which has always so strongly advocated the maternity bonus and child endowment, and which is responsible in so large a measure for their protection, will most cordially welcome this pronouncement of support for its policy from Dr. Gilroy.

DIGNITY OF MAN.

Humanitarian attitudes on the part of any of the great Christian Churches will always be heartily reciprocated by the Labour Movement, which, equally with the Christian Churches, believes in the dignity of man. The other statement emanated from the Reverend Dr. Eris O’Brien. This Catholic priest, who has made a tangible contribution to scholarship 'with his “History of Australia,” told the Catholic Seamen’s Institute on Sunday that the ideals of Hiller were to be strongly condemned. J “They were pagan and parochial, said Dr. O’Brien, “and adapted for little backyards.” i Hitler hated Catholics, Dr. O’Brien, added, because besides being a'loyal citizen a Catholic, like Oliver Goldsmith, was “a citizen of the world,” seeing the image of God in every creature, whether he came from Greenland or Cape Horn. These sentiments of Dr. O’Brien will be as warmly echoed by the Labour Movement as the humane reflections of Dr. Gilroy on the rights of mothers and children. BOTH INTERNATIONAL.

Like the Catholic Church, the Labour Movement is international in its outlook. It is a movement which hopes, by constructive international action, to abolish war and the exploitation of subject peoples. It hopes eventually by controlling and displacing the great trusts and combines, to introduce more democratic control of industry. It aims to give all those who work by hand or brain a greater share of the products of their labours. The forces of. Fascism aim at something wlfich is the very opposite of the ideals expressed by the Labour Movement and supported in these aspects by the humanitarian statements of Dr. Gilroy and Dr. O’Brien. Both of these reverend gentlemen cAn rest assured that in advocating maternity and child endowment and in opposing the excesses of the Fascist Hitler they will have the unstinted co-opera-tion of the forces of Labour in every country in the world.