GOD, HUMANITY, AND GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21646, 17 May 1932, Page 10

GOD, HUMANITY, AND GOLD

TO THE EDITOR Sir,—l feel sure that Mr E. Roberts will endorse my claim that the human race is irrevocably dependent for its existence upon the resources of nature. From the bosom of Mother Nature come all the different materials necessary to provideall human wants. Further, the existence of all this natural and potential wealth is seen to be the result of an invisible " creation," in which* no human hand or brain has lent the least assistance. Man himself is a product of this invisible creation, which secretly sustains life in its multitudinous abundance and forms the basic structure upon which Christianity indestructibly rests. It is the height, of imagination to presume that th>; r "Author of the Universe" is a human being, formed in the image of a man, with all the attributes of the human element so characteristically depicted in the Old Testament. To end this childish conception of the Creator, the mission of Jesus Christ commences a new era aiming at pirAfying religious thought on a spiritual plane that explains the Creator's intentions as revealed in natural and irrevocable law and as harmonising with the highest human intelligence. The early , fathers of the Christian Church grasped this important difference when they divided the New Testament from the Old. The latter only describes the purely human and natural'conception of the Creator, while the New Testament gives us the divine or supernatural conception as revealed in the life of Christ. The conflict between man and man is as old as the numbers of years that have elapsed since the beginning of the hiunaii race. By nature man is an animal, potentially capable of being civilised and raised to a higher moral plane, both by voluntary self-restraint, or by compulsory' external restraint enforced by environment, which changes with the progressive advances made- in mechanical.. discoveries arising from age to age. From these mechanical discoveries arises the human power to obtain from nature the hidden potential wealth, which to-day forms the visible cause of all social and industrial conflict because of its grossly inequitable distribution. The animal in man is responsible for this disturbing conflict, and

it is the function of Christianity to explain, by means of Christian ethics, how evil can be removed by righteousness placing it. v Christian ethics differ from all other ethics in the fact that it involves abstention from the use of coercion in'physical form; this part develops upon the secular authorities who have administrative power which the Church does not possess, but to every reasoning human being it becomes plain that no form of Government can administer justice before justice has been defined and embodied in statute law. We are thus seen to be at a singe in social evolution in which a .part in the industrial system fails to provide ihat equality of opportunity to work, which is absolutely essential' to establish a claim to remuneration. At the present stage we have no other method of describing and determining remuneration ,by any means other than money. Money therefore becomes the only measure of value of the workmanship performed and in addition also determines cost expressed in price, which is distinct from value, and in , all systems finance reyeals, by correct accountancy, whether exchange in trade results in a credit or debit balance. This process is entirely financial in its operation, and outside the scope of Labour’s control. Hence we trace the cause of all industrial disturbance to unsound financial manipulation from the responsibility for which all employees are exempt who have not deliberately falsified accounts within their control. Now for further information on this important subject we have the testimony of every leading) economist of repute throughout the world. These are injanimously of opinion that no inflation of the currency can take .place without legal sanction of the . Government. Inflation implies substituting a sterling metal currency by a base and cheaper substitute which nominally acts with the same effects performed by a token currency but would have no value for international purposes. Nor would it bring about the more equitable distribution necessary to remove unemployment by increasing purr chasing power, which is of primary importance and is of greater urgency than that involved in international agreement of which we see no immediate prospect. Mr Roberts is quite right in pointing out an error in reference to Gresham’s Law contained in my previous letter. By transposing “inferior” for “superior” the sense is completely altered to harmonise with the text.—l am, etc., W. Sivertsen.