CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 200, 24 July 1936, Page 2

CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENCE.

ADDRESS BY FATHER HIGGINS

Rev. Father J. A. Higgins, S.M., director of Catholic Social Science lor Archbishop O’Shea, S.M., in the Archdiocese of Wellington, delivered a lecture in Palmerston North last Mondav evening. This lecture was the first of‘ a series which Father Higgins will give each month for the Catholic Students’ Guild. Rt. Rev. Monsignor McManus introduced the lecturer and said that Father Higgins spoke with authority from the Archbishop and welcomed him to Palmerston North. The lecturer made clear the following points: First, he said, the slump need never have happened. The idea that a depression was like a hurricane which must blow itself out was false. No economic law demanded that people starve in the midst of plenty; and only people who were laithless to God could ever believe the lie that says that sound economic law demanded that good people should suffer want while there was plenty to eat and to wear. Father Higgins said that people should never again believe that true economic law demanded poverty for men in a rich land. Allien England was truly Christian men could suffer hunger only when there was not enough food for the people; economic law, or rather so-called economic law, was not then allowed to force men to go hungry while food was plentiful. This being so, what needs to be done? The answer to that question could not be given in one lecture, but one vitally necessary conditions for justice was that a nation must have a government that could govern. The lecturer quoted the words ol the present Pope: “The State is enslaved, bound over to the service of human passion and greed.” There are signs that governments will once more he truly able to govern, and the people must demand that rulers really rule, llut no rrovernment could do its work of properly ruling a nation unless it ultimately controlled the “life-blood of commerce and industry”—money, finance, credit. Moreover Governments must rule for the one object of all government for the common good of the people, proceeded the speaker. This common good of the people was not public wealth and civic splendour; it was the sound, solid, healthy family life of the people. Public services and fine cities and tlie like were excellent if they served the good family life of the people; otherwise they might ho only the magnificient symptoms of social decay. The reverend lecturer stated that he considered it an honour to speak in Palmerston North and he was very pleased to be able to do so. He thanked Mon sign or McManus for his courteous kindness.