A DUNEDIN CLERGYMAN ON BOYCOTTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8364, 18 September 1890, Page 6

A DUNEDIN CLERGYMAN ON BOYCOTTING.

At the Hanover-street Baptist Church, Dunedin, last Sunday, the Rev. Mr. North took for his text Romans xiv., part 4. He said that in the pulpit he was loth to touch on the dispute which was now going on in our midst, his feeling being that a minister of the Gospel in his ministrations should follow the lines of the Lord and His Apostles, who steadfastly avoided laying down any definite lines in the way of social or political reform, but who enunciated the principles that cut at the root of all evils. The rev. gentleman then continued : —" Now, I beg you to observe and to remember that neither employers nor unions have any right over your consciences—that you are not relieved of the consequences or guilt of wrongdoing if you suppress your convictions in obedience to their instructions, or take courses contradictory to your convictions. We are in danger of allowing ourselves to be led astray by notions of loyalty to parties, persons, causes. Your business is to be loyal to God. If loyalty to parties, causes, persons coincides with, is embraced in loyalty to Him, be loyal ; but, if not, you must obey God rather than men— rami, whatever comes of itand must allow no specious arguments of expediency, self-interest, party triumph, or social advantage, to lead you astray. Now, if it be truethatweall individually are responsible, and are directlv responsible, to God, we must respect each other's convictions ; the foundation of individual liberty is individual responsibility. "We have a right to follow the course which approves itself to our consciences, but we have no right to attempt tr. coerce another to embrace our principles or conform his line of action to ours. To do that is to step in between him and his Lord—to assume that he stands or falls to you, not to Him. Sec new what has come about amongst us. I believe that the first principles and aims of trades unions are right. I believe, and so far as I know, no sane man questions the right and utility of men banding themselves together for their common advantage. Further, without doubt, every man has a right to serve a given firm or buy of it, or refrain from doing so. Each man has, admittedly, freedom of choice in these matters—has admitUdly, I say ; but hew he? What are we bo say of those who claim but will not yield this freedom ? What are we to say of attempts to coerce men to the doing of that which their judgments, if not their consciences, disapprove; what of terrorisms brought to bear on individuals to compel them to take the way that others choose ; what of deliberate attempts to ruin individuals and firms ; what of endeavours to get men so far to belie themselves as to break contracts they have entered into? I speak with grief, with humiliation, with reluctance extreme, but with a deep sense of obligation. These things arc wrong, indefensible, and are to be denounced at all costs. It is not by such means that the ends sought are to be reached—unless, indeed, the ends sought are other than worthy : selfish at the core. Are we so blind as to suppose that by an er.-. of persecution the true interests of the people are to be furthered '! This movement is spoken of as a reaction from the tyranny of capital—and that in many instances has indeed been grinding enough, wicked enough, to earn shame and reprobation as all tyranny earns it; but is it imagined that two wrongs make a right— that by copying evils that are denounced good may be compassed? It cannot, cannot be. Any righteous cause is dishonoured by oppression in any form—dishonoured and retarded. The only way to further such a cause is by persistent advocacy and, if need be, suffering. lam not blind to the measure of self-denial evinced in this struggle. lam not looking on one side of the question and withholding my meed of praise to the virtues manifested in connection with it. I honour those who for principle have elected to suffer, I respect their liberty, and rejoice in their self-abnegation ; but I do, from a most solemn sense of obligation, enter my vehement protest, in the name of God, against the acts of persecution, petty and great, which are exasperating the people and endangering the cause in supporb of which they are perpetrated. This practice of boycotting is wrong at the ■ heart of it, and wrong all the way through.