A PLEA FOR COMMON ACTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1933, Page 6

A PLEA FOR COMMON ACTION.

Archbishop Averill’s plea for common and courageous action on the part of politicians, financiers and economists to find a way out of the economic clouds with which New Zealand is encompassed is sure to make a wide appeal. It is good for any country when leaders in ethical teaching take a practical interest in the mundane affairs of the community in which they would see applied the principles they believe in and advocate. It is to the honour of all the New Zealand churches that they have done yeoman service in trying to alleviate distress of the bad times that are passing away. A pronouncement from one of the leaders of. the church will therefore receive sympathetic consideration from all classes of society. Archbishop Averill pleaded for something wider than the immediate relief of hunger, lack of clothing and all the other discomforts due to the misfortune of being unemployed. He appealed rather for co-operation between leaders of thought,, finance and industrialism in order that a way might be found whereby unemployment on a large scale would be rendered impossible and better social conditions be brought about. It is a fine ideal, and sometimes the idealists of to-day are the “practical” leaders of the morrow. Undoubtedly the recognition is growing that the old conditions of society have passed away. If the difficulties are more numerous they are also more widely diffused. The strain is upon all. Capital can no longer remain aloof, entrenched and assured of its ultimate power. Labour can no longer rely upon sheer antagonism to capital supported by numbers and the power to hold up industry «ven at serious ultimate loss to the wage-eamer. The intermediate class which accepted the disadvantages of the demands of both Capital and Labour as a kind of scourge of Providence must be shaken out of its lethargy also. The call to service is to aIL New Zealand’s history, short as it is, has chapters that show how united efforts saved the province of Taranaki and other parts of the Dominion for western civilisation. To-day the call is for co-operation in other and more intricate forms. But the need for unison is as great as it was 80 years ago, and insofar as that need is recognised and satisfied will the recovery of the Dominion be hastened or delayed.