TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 22106, 29 August 1933, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Ills of Civilization. In an address before the National Peace Congress, Professor Gilbert Murray, said that one of the most extraordinary circumstances in the present age was that so great a number, of people who were in no sense alarmists should be saying that civilization was in danger of coming to a crash. The present age, however, had none of the outward signs of decadence. This generation was sometimes accused of being a weary generation without the strength to carry out its task, but it appeared to him that the world was full of enthusiasm. “If it were possible definitely to save the world by some great sacrifice of life or happiness by perhaps a thousand people, we should have a thousand volunteers immediately. We have enthusiasm, but our enthusiasms are fighting one against another. To get these forces co-ordinated and adjusted we must have order, and for that we must have confidence. Ido not believe the world is morally on the downgrade. There is more justice, more mercy, and more social conscience than at any former time.” The evils from which civilization was suffering were largely due to mere maladjustment.

The Church’s Crisis.

In a paper read at an Albert Hall meeting held in connection with the centenary of the Oxford Movement, the Rev. Dr. K. E. Kirk, Regihs Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, referred to the question of the spiritual independence of the Church. “Unless we take the matter seriously to heart, we are heading straight for disaster,” he declared. “The crisis may come at any moment; for my own part, I believe it will come almost certainly in the matter of sexual morality. The Christian principle of monogamy will be flouted, if I read the signs aright, on some spectacular occasion in a manner which we cannot afford to ignore; and the whole question of the Church’s right to make her own demands upon her members, and to exercise her own discipline if they refuse to comply, will flare up in a veritable pillar of fire. No church can speak or act with spiritual authority which truckles to the whims of party politics or accepts its mandates and its limitations from the State. The appalling inability of the Church of England to make up her mind either on doctrinal or on moral issues,” he added, “means that she is, still barely conscious of herself as the guardian of a sacred deposit, and that she has failed to impress this aspect of her true nature upon many who profess themselves to be churchmen.”

India’s Constitution.

In a speech on the Indian constitutional proposals, Sir John Thompson declared that they must go ahead toward the goal they had fixed. It was they who decided to give to India English education and education in British ideas, they who, in spite of warnings, decided to Indianize the Services, they who had developed Indian self-govern-ment, had admitted Indians to the higher council, they who had given the Indian Princes the power of combination. It was all so characteristic of themselves and their absorbing belief in the benefits of English institutions. When they had had to make decisions it had never been a decision to turn back. Unity was something which India had never yet had. Once or twice in her long history she had seemed to approach it but always it had eluded her. Never had she come so near it as under British rule, but the future must rest more largely with India than with Britain. Her heaviest task must be the removal of communal dissensions. If only Indians could keep the political manifestations of religious feelings within bounds they would have achieved something which we seemed no longer able to do. During the discussion Sir John Thompson was asked whether he believed Indians would have greater success in preventing Hindu and Moslem strife than British administrators had. In his reply he said:—“People talk about the maintenance of the Pax Britannica as one of

the greatest boons we have conferred on India. The Pax Britannica has not been maintained for the past 20 years. That is one of the reasons why I think the coming changes may be for the good of India. We have always shown a great hesitancy in dealing with political agitation which masquerades as religious agitation. It completely puts us out of our stride. I believe a Mohammedan minister would never allow himself to be deceived about the real value of religious agitation. That is why I believe Indians would be better equipped for dealing with communal strife than we are.”