Yesterday To-day To-morrow IN NEW ZEALAND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5597, 26 March 1943, Page 4

Yesterday To-day To-morrow IN NEW ZEALAND

(By

BENJAMIN DAVID)

CHAPTER I.—(Continued) Let us beware of these, for therein lie wars and rumours of wars, without exemption of man or nation. Continuing down through the pages of history, we find Satan still at the same old game, the desire to possess all to the exclusion of the rights of others who are entitled to their fair share of the heritage given by God to man, individually, nationally, and internationally. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.” “ Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the beasts of the field,” etc.

This is the heritage of every man, and not of man over man, wherein lie war and rumours of wars.

Nations and empires have risen and fallen in regular succession, and still the same game goes on with exactly the same result.

Even with Christ Himself the game of playing the same trump cards was tried on by Satan. For forty days and forty nights Christ fasted in the wilderness, tempted of Satan in every way in which man was tempted; yet without sin. And on every occasion Christ defeated Satan by using the Word of God as a sword: “ It is written.” Finally Satan played his last great trump card—and lost ’. “ Again the devil taketh Him (Jesus) up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto Him: All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him: Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth Him., and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.’’ (Matth. iv., Bto 11.) Ever since then Satan has played the same card with men, until in our day we have found exactly the same principle operating in the cases of Bismarck and the Kaiser, Hitler and his colleagues, Japan and her aspirations. Taking them each in turn on to a high mountain, he showed them all the countries round about, and said. “ All these will I give you if you will only fall down and worship me.” And they fell to it. And so we haye wars and rumours of wars. Thus we behold the causes underlying the present world upheaval—ignorance of the true issues and laws of life as revealed in God’s Word. The love of money,, the love of power, covetousness, greed, selfishness, intensified in the case of the Axis nations, but present in a lesser degree throughout the world, in defiance of the written, unchangeable, and eternal laws of God as written in His Word. These are the root causes of all the trouble. And if these causes are not dealt with and crushed by us, the same effects will continue wars and rumours of wars. CHAPTER 11. THE ATLANTIC CHARTER I Inherent in the mind of man is a consciousness of something wrong, not only in Germany and her Axis nations, but in the Allied nations as well. And so while this awful conflict is yet in its infancy, there is born “ The Atlantic Charter.” This noble conception in its essence sets out the conflicting claims of De- • mocracy as against Autocracy. It assumes, however, that the Allied nations are democratic. Is that so ? Let us look into this matter closely and carefully and see if such is the case.

“Democracy” means “The rule of the people, by the people, for the people.” In all the allied countries, Russia perhaps excepted, the rule is not “ by the people,” but by a section of the people for that same section of the people, to the exclusion of the rights of the rest of the community. This system is called “ Party Government ” —a pernicious system, -ally of Autocracy, which breeds injustice and conflict where there should be justice and peace. This system also breeds a darge family of “ professional politicians,” as distinct from “statesmen, patriots, and counsellors.”

Now. a professional politician is a man who has become expert at making promises before an election and excuses after an election. He is a man who., once elected and possessed of the people’s powers delegated to him by his electors at the ballot box, uses his position first to suit his own ends and after that the trust reposed in him by his electors—the trust getting the dregs. Therefore, the professional politician is a serious menace to the State.

This, of course, must not be applied to a limited number of truly honest men who, having been elected to Parliament, fulfil their trust faithfully. But too often .do these find themselves in a hopeless minority in Parliament and debarred from placing their mentality and character on the Statute Book. But how different is the class of Parliament enunciated in the Great Chart of Life—the living Word of the living God. There it is written in clear and simple language which a child can understand: “Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”—(Job. 11-14.) Thus God’s Word places its finger, once and for all, on the one great essential which goes to make for good and sound government. The principle is that where there is sound character in the hearts and minds of the people of a nation it only requires that “counsellors ” be elected

to Parliament, after which the government of the country can be left with confidence by all the people in the hands of tneir elected representatives.

In New Zealand this is a system which can, even now, be very quickly effected, because there has been established under Social Security laws a complete record of every person 18 years old and over, together with their occupations, from which can be compiled registers of electors ifiAder the following method of election:— 1— That the electors be registered in groups according to their respective callings. 2 That adjacent branches of groups, until the numerical strength reaches approximately 10,000 electors, constitute an electorate. 3 That only persons on the register of an electorate be eligible for nomination as candidates for election to Parliament as representative for the said electorate. I—That right of recall, with safeguarded limits, be the prerogative of the electors of an electorate. 5 That the Upper House be abolished. In any case it is only a useless Old Men’s Home. 6 That the Prime Minister be elected by the country as a whole, by separate ballot papers, on the day of the general election. It is obvious that, under this system, electors would only select one of their most competent and trustworthy members to be their representative to Parliament. Parliament will then have within its own membership expert counsellors of the highest order, capable of supplying the House with first-hand expert evidence on every subject brought under debate.

The very system itself will compel all representatives to automatically recognise and strive for “justice and equity ” for every section of the people.

In this way we will have true democracy—“ The rule of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Such a Parliament will consist only of ‘counsellors” of the Biblical standard—the only standard by which we can find peace on earth and goodwill among men. • Under this system of election, if a lepresentative prove unfaithful to his trust, fall to the temptation of bribery and corruption or in other ways either through his own fault or for reasons over which he has no control, then his electors would have the right to recall him, and elect another in his place at any time within the limits of their constitutional authority. (To be continued)