FINANCE AND INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21409, 10 August 1931, Page 10

FINANCE AND INDUSTRY

10 I'll h kimtob t Sir, —Students who specialise in economics have found that finance is the controlling factor that determines every person’s material prosperity. Finance and money are practically interchangeable terms. No one can be materially prosperous who has not the ability to secure a monetary income sufficient to provide for his physical wants, and to obtain such an income forms every person’s principal aim. It is in the process of securing money that the problem of self-interest becomes a leading factor that introduces the subject of ethics and brings the problem within the scope of the Christian Church; and many and various are the explanations offered on this perplexing theme. Up to quite recently it was common to hoar ordained ministers proclaim that selfishness was the cause of all human misery, and that prominent among all sins ol selfishness was the love of money. Since the days of the Songs of King Solomon

thousands of religious people have proclaimed that “ the love of money is the root of all evil.” Strange, is it not, that now we seldom hear the expression used by any religious authority? Has the Church a’dvanced in the knowledge of God, or has it receded? Or has a deeper knowledge of the function of money revealed its paramount importance? Perhaps the leading intelligence guiding the Church Las become more consistent through the conscious knowledge that the very existence of the visible Church depends upon money, that its charity and benevolence require money, that its upkeep and expansion require more money. In fact, without money where would the Church be? Now, finance is exactly outside the Church as well as within the Church. Finance is a pa# of the social and industrial system and cannot be ignored or obliterated, and the keynote to the relation between Christianity and our industrial system is found in the fact that ■whatever concrete gain we make for ourselves must be taken from others. In the process of evolutionary progress each individual has become absolutely dependent upon the labour and skill of his fellow man for the means of his subsistence. His very happiness arises from the personal skill displayed by others in ministering to bis physical and spiritual requirements. It is this unalterable condition upon which the Golden Rule rests, “ Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you.” and it irrefutably establishes the truth of Christianity. God undisputabiy rules the world by the force of natural law fixed and eternal in both the physical and the spiritual sphere of man’s existence, and persistent violation of this law inevitably brings misery and crime, which we are perfectly justified in declaring arises from ignoring the teaching of Christianity.

If we stop to think upon the perplexities that now afflict the world each person will speedily become conscious of lus own impotence in restoring order. No one individually lias the power to accomplish anything beyond suggesting what he thinks and such suggestions must appeal to the understanding of others before public opinion can he concentrated to act with moral force upon the authorities upon which rests the responsibility of regulating commerce and industry in accordance with human welfare. It is here that the importance of Christianity comes into evidence. Is our industrial system operated and controlled by Christian ethics or by the ethics of self-interest, which is antiChristian? Upon a settlement of this question hinges the solution of the industrial problem that is now confronting us. It is a question whether God or mammon is to be served. It is for the Church to show the people that without Christian elhies nil human efforts are in vain.—l am, etc., W. Sxvertsen.