POLITICS AND THE CHURCH.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14707, 7 June 1920, Page 8

POLITICS AND THE CHURCH.

REMARKIBLE ADDRESS

Ift his opening address before the Presbyterian General Assembly i>t New South Wales a few nights ago in Sydney, the the Rev. - J. H. Craig, MvAv, made remarkable com T ments on political life and the church. - "'The worker is finding that strikes and threats of striking will soon fail 'to. effect their purpose." said Mr Craig. "Already some -. apparently successful strikes have produced disappointment and misery to. the . worker, and drawn the black, lines of starvation, on the face of the striker's child. The thousands i who applaud" and uphold the sentiments j of the boss agitators in the hall find it ! difficult to justify themselves to their | wives in the privacy of the home; the j empty cupboard speaks louder thin the Domain .orator. The worker may well [ tremble lest capital should, in reply to | his menace, organise itself as thorough-, [ jy here as it has done in America, where lit has become victorious in many a struggle. Ido not pretend to be omniscient in the matter of industrial.strife, but it seems to me, after briefly studying schemes, varying between the paie ; armchair theories of Rousseau, and. the sanguinary theory of Marx and Trotsky, <ind the legislation of various lands, in the direction of compulsory arbitration, that co-operation will be tlie bridge over the gulf, and that the transforming of corporations, trusts, industries, limited liability companies, into co-operative societies will, do much towards ending industrial strife. There is a danger which co-operators perhaps def not foresee. I hope that the will not-, ucce.pt the Federal Government's backing as outlined in Mr W; M. Hughes' letter to a recent congfess. His policy, he said, was to remove the food of the

people from the operations of specula tors, and bring the producer and consumer more closely together, giving to the one the utmost for his labors; to the other the product with as little added cost of distribution as possible. He hoped, the deliberations of the congress would narrow the field for exploitation and widen the possibilities for a. people unwilling to be exploited to seek by co-operatiori 'a socijl way out.' Now, any attempt by a Government to regulate co-operation is needless. and will be harmful. Governments become fond of t adopting military methods and of drilling the industrial community according to a kind of modified King's regulation. To turn a society into a semi-military body is to deprive the society of some of its freedom of movement.

To recall t-lie whole world, civil, social, religious, and/ecclesiastical,' to a more serious view of the ethics embodied in the Commandments and our Lords Sermon on the Mount-, and to a deeper consciousness of a. moral responsibilty for thought and speech, is, one duty laid on the Church, a duty made more needful by the excesses and immoral outgrowths 'of the late war. But- before the Church can begin this work of cleansing the world's stables she must cleanse her own front- door. Observers outside the Church comment unfavorably on the obvious antagonism r?i Vl6w belief prevailing amongst Churchmen on vital and practical topic's, such as the Lord's Day question, divorce, profanity, war, loyalty.

amusements, as well as on doctrinal topics, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. They note the lack of brotherliness and of mutual love and trust, the abundance of superciliousness; the ambitiousness of some, the pugnaeiousness of others. The world thereupon demands that, these evils and those other differences of belief and of practice should be swept away before it will consent to listen to admonitions and expostulations about its moral defects. We solace ourselves and silence our objectors by saying that we acknowledge our faults and are sedulously correcting them and restraining our spirits, whereas the world o;ives a loose rein and a still losser rein to its wild desires.

"Our appeal to our legislators to legislate along the lines of cleanliness, truth, and equity will be ineffective until tliey decido to reform themselves in conduct, and speech. Can a clean thing come out of an unclean? Any nation which entrusts the making of its laws to men too much'acquainted with the bankruptcy and-divorce courts, too much acquainted with liquor and the liquor trade, equally skilful at accepting bribes and charging others with accepting them, should not expect legislation that will make the people sober, true, straightforward, contested, and prosperous, unless the legislation is overruled by God. Taxpayer?, complaining of the large numbers of legislators in j Australia, should not forget- that the ma jority have some noble ideals; each party. National, Labor, and Independent. has its ideals: no one can deny that- some of the ideals of the Labor party are of a most handsome kind, needful, reformative, humanitarian, as well as possessed of a religious basis: but- the gap between the practices and the ideals of each party makes some onlookers bemoan the fact of Parliamentary insincerity, so like to ecclesiastical insincerity, and makes others conceal the fact 'that they belong to nny political party; as voters they vote, and that ends the matter for them: but it does net end the matter or mend it: for political inaction, abstention from strongly exercising one's rights, produces no change, no enlightenment, no improvement. Whilst- one demand is for honest, disinterested business men to be legislators, another equally strong demand is that all Christians should exercise their choice, and choose men of wisdom, truth, and discernment.

"We find that the politician who is despaired of when he is not despised, deemed incapable of betterment, is neither rebuked nor removed, nor transformed into an honorable legislator; the country remains a prey to the crafty and the greedy, ajid is the despair of those who see the evils, but are unable, by lack of funds or of friends or of influential supporters, to make their efforts towards remedying matters effective. 'lt stands to the credit of one Sydney newspaper. I believe it was the Sydney Morning Herald, that by reporting in Full the drunken utterances and profaltTes and contradictions of a Minister of the Crown at a banquet in a past generation, that he was hounded out of political life; under the plea of ill-health he resigned his portfolio, and the State was rid of his questionable presence and aid. It would require the influence of all the staid newspapers of Australia to extinguish the modern politician who, by his misappropriations, or corruptness, or baseness, made, himself common property and' common talk. We are told by Principal John Mackay that that wiseo!d sage- and master statesman. Yuan Shih Kai, who guided China through its most critical period with marked success, has shown Bis far-sighted wisdom in nothing more than in the law against political corruption passed "-by his order. This law provides that anyone in public office who accepts a bribe of 500. dollars or more shall be punished with death, and those guilty of lesser crimes of this nature shall lie punished with great severity. One of the first offenders was n very prominent official, who was a 'lifelong friend of the President. After giving him a fair trial, Yuan Shih Kai ordered him away to instant execution, and refused to be seen by anyone till all was over, lest _ -he should fail in what he believed, and rightly believed, to be a life and death matter to his country. Principal Mackay commends this lhjv to the people of Canada, death penalty and all. It is .true, he says, that the first year of ifs operation, especially if it were retroactive, would'leave us minus r, considerable liumbeT ,of knights and honorable? and a little' army of, 'good' fellows who liave made things pleasant for themselves and' the purchasable element of the populace, without money. 13ut Principal Mackay felt confident that we would be able to exist quite well were thev gone 'to their own place.' ."This,", the Moderator continued, "may" be neciessarv in Canada • but here we do not despair so utterly of our Australian land' and its outlook, . because*, amongst its : leaders are several whose reputations are. unsullied. whose thoughts are devoted ' to, the good of the whole, and not: to personal aims and local 'benefits. - There ;have been and there are hisrh-soiiled. "unselfish - statesmen with largf views, menj'nt whom no. ston° can be thrown, of whom any land would' be -proud, who spend days and nights and exhausttbrtnselves in planning remedial beneficial legislation, and in propoundinf r«rinoip]e=r which find their origin and impulse in what is best and God-arfven « in the humam heart. Because .men of

this self-sacrificing stamp have"" been and are,; -we -are hopeful disaster, will not overwhehh us as a people. sVVe a r<r hopeful and filled with faith because God,- who is love, exists, and has always overruled- man's will. \Ve are hopeful because most" objects ?iu nar ture and most of the Gospel promises and most of our, daily experiences, have k ' background of bright -expectations. The light may be dim, - but light is there. 1 Behind the clouds is God's sunshine; behind ■'His displeasure at sin is His mercy, and behind the dreariness and disappointments of- life is love."