MORAL RE-ARMAMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 89, 14 March 1941, Page 4

MORAL RE-ARMAMENT

(To the Editor.) , Sir,- —In common with other residents I have received a card on “Morale,” issued by the City Corporation and signed by the Mayor and councillors. The card contains six precepts. Three of these are good commonsense advice applicable to the present war conditions. The final three, however, are an appeal for religious practices peculiar to an organisation known as the “Oxford Group.” There could, of course, be no possible exception to the Mayor and councillors, in their private capacity as citizens, interesting themselves in the distribution of religious propaganda for the above or any other sect, but it is a different matter when they do so officially, and this action calls for strong criticisin. Tlieir duties as prescribed by Act of Parliament concern the administration of the secular affairs of the community, which includes in its numbers reputable citizens subscribing to a wide diversity of religious beliefs and many having none. It appears an incorrect move, and one without statutory sanction, for the City Fathers to sponsor a particular form of religion and pay for the propaganda, presumably out of public funds. My argument is in no way vitiated by the.fact that the religious beliefs expounded by the Oxford Group are of a nebulous natureTo prove this, I would ask readers to consider the outcry which would have been raised had the council published literature in support of the tenets of some firmly established, denomination.—l am, etc., 01V Id.