PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 March 1923, Page 5

PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIALISM. DUTY OF THE CHURCH. By Telegraph.—Press Associatlon. Auckland, Last Night. In his presidential address, the Rev. T. Wilson Potts, chairman of the Con-, gregational Union said it was scarcely! possible to avoid recognition of the,* fact that with a quickening of social conscience, politics and ethics were coming much nearer together, and in many; great questions of domestic legislation/ moral issues were closely interwoven with the social and economical conditions. Problems dealing with land and housing, with the relations of capital and labor, and with conditions of industry were so largely questions of righteousness, as well as policy, that the Church could not but utter its voice. He had no intention of entering into a discussion on Socialism, but the day had gone ’by when they could be content to be ignorant of it, and set it aside with contemptuous caricature. The State must recognise it as one of the forces to shape the politics of the future, and it was equally impossible for the Church to avoid its recognition. The Church must not allow its responsibility in these modern social issues to evaporate on mere pious opinion, but. on the other hand, it must not degenerate into mere rancorous partisanship.