SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By

the Rev. J. D. McL. WILSON

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

PROBLEMS OF MODERN LIFE. “INDUSTRY WITHOUT MORALITY.” Industry without morality is a far influencing sin, and possibly more than any other is responsible for the present chaotic position of affairs. The modern world is an industrial world, and its character and ethics, not less than its productions, have affected every nation and human group from the Eskimo within the Arctic Circle to the Maori at Half Moon Bay in Stewart Island, and from the native in the heart of Thibet to the Bedawi in the middle of the Sahara. So tremendous a hold has industrialism upon the world that it has been declared its problems and its influences exceed those of even economics and politics. It is hard to imagine that this is all a growth of the last two hundred years. But between 1763 and 1792 there appeared various mechanical inventions such as Hargreaves spinning Jenny, Arkwright’s water frame, Compton’s mule, Cartwright’s power loom, Watt’s steam engine which entirely changed the face of industry. Indeed they brought about the industrial revolution. They brought in the factory system and that system called into being the capitalistic and the wage earning classes. As Gladstone said, “Nothing has done more to make England what she is whether for better or for worse, than this sudden and industrial revolution.” Of course it had results that are counted for good. It gave Britain half a century’s start of all the other nations of Europe, it increased her wealth tenfold, it gave her a power and dominance which has not yet been completely lost, and of course enormous fortunes were made. It. had results much more doubtful. Almost immediately a demand for cheap labour' sprang up and the mills were filled with women and children. Children of five years of age were kept working for 12 and 15 hours a day in stifling rooms .amid the whirling of a thousand wheels. They were cruelly treated and kept awake by ingenious tortures. Older people worked in chains like convicts to prevent their running away, and when they died of fatigue and brutal treatment, they were secretly buried and nd inquiry was held. Mining and agriculture were in the same deplorable condition as the factory, and a climax was reached about 1840 in the Chartist riots. ■ can read the history of this period of our industrial development without indignation and shame. Look at the results which still continue—the break up of the family as the centre of life and work, and the disintegration of the home; the sharp division and antagonisms of labour and capital, the growth of trusts and monopolies, the speeding up of the competitive machine and the fierce and ugly spirit which it has engendered; the insecurity and precariousness of the worker, the lessening of the sturdiness, the ability and the character of the average man, and so on. Watson in his book on “Christianity and the Social Problem” declares that the outstanding feature of modem society is its social disintegration which he traces to the industrial revolution. Professor Peabody draws this picture of the present situation. “The characteristics of modern industry,” he says, “have brought about a state not. unlike war, where are two armed camps. The force of the employed combined to meet what seem the aggressions of the employers, and the force of the employers combined to resist what seem the unreasonable demands of the employed. Strikes and lock-outs are temporary raids across the enemy frontiers. Organisation on both sides disciplines and drills the contending armies. Industrial arbitration like international arbitration offers itself as a last substitute for battle. While hanging on the skirts of the two forces, threatening the employers with violence, and weakening by its competition the power of the employed is that unorganised and shifting mass which we call the A army of the unemployed. Even international diplomacy is now concerned quite as much with questions of industrial warfare as with pilitical issues, and the treaties, the competitions, the territorial expansion of nations have become more and more the weapons of trade.” Now no present day religion, least of all Christianity, dares to ignore industry and industrialism, for its spirit, its ethic have already coloured all our social life and have affected all our moral standards. And what is the ethic of industry, what are its spiritual norams and values ? There is a sinister sound in the very name. When we say a social enterprise is being industrialised, when we say sport and art are being commercialised, what is the picture called up in our minds? It is of art debased for grain, it is of sport dishonourably sold for profit. See hdw this spirit of exploitation, this success at any price has darkened everything. Beshnell declared that current price was almost everywhere made by the contrary bulling and bearing Of two selfishnesses, that of the sellers and that of the . buyers.. The commercial magnates and. captains of industry tell you quite frankly .there are no friends in business, arid in an interesting paper, written by. one in this town until lately head of a large trading concern, he asks why are binding. legal agreements required Where once the business man’s word was. his bond ? Answering his own question he declares most agreements are founded upon mutual distrust and few are expressive of the desire of the contracting parties to keep them.

See how this terrible spirit which undoubtedly does underlie modern commerce and industry. - express itself. Take a few actual cases. Here are certion proprietary medicines (recently we are glad to say condemned and forbidden) because they contained habitforming drugs—such as cocaine, chloroform, and morphine. Some of these were especially intended for little children, and were sold as “children’s comfort," “soothing syrup,” and “baby’s friend.” The vitiation of human life and the damning with fatal bias, body and soul, was nothing to these unscrupulous profiteers. Some of you may even have partaken of chocolates in whose centre were wine and liquer essences, set there—tempferailce organisations believe—for the purpose of familiarising young people with such things. Or here is a ship burned not so long ago, where it was revealed the life preservers were stuffed with saw-dust and rotten cork. Last year, in a little book called “The Truth About the Slump,” with page after page of chicanery in high places. _ it mentioned incidentally, that 50 million dollars were converted into the treasuries of various trusts since 1887, by means of rebates and other forms of favouritism. And this sort of thing can be multiplied interminably in every group of society up to governments and international relations. We need no longer pillory the King of the Belgians, and the red rubber scandalous atrocities along the Congo, we need no more exhibit as unique the revelations of the Chicago meat-trusts. The expressions of this spirit are patent everywhere, from the exploitation of nations in native and weak territories and the operations

of great trusts, down to the activities of the humble vendor upon the streets who places profit before service and undue gain before fair dealing. And there is a moral problem even in so subtle a matter as the fixing of a bank Now it must not be understood from what we have said that we aie condemnatory of all in big business or in high finance. We recognise there are business men whose character and dealings are above reproach and even suspicion. We recognise, too, the extreme difficulties of determining what is right in a great many commercial transactions. The intricate complexities and ramifications of modern dealing are such that the application of known and familiar principles is extraordinarily difficult. But the gravamen of the charge remains and we do not wonder that from the earliest centiiries there has been a distrust of financial and commercial dealing. It is not surprising that in the earlier days of the industrial period. Carlyle and Ruskin felt a Divine urge to lift up the torch of righteousness, honour and truth to the grim, ugly and hateful realities so evident in their days. We are not astonished that modern observers like Haldane speak of “the present dark period when the clawlike fingers of the sordid spirit of this age are upon everything” with alarm and gravest foreboding. Americans even established at Yale a new college called the “Institute of Human Relations,” to discover a way out of the present impasse. And it has everywhere been hinted, and often with reproach, that the Church ought to embark upon a definite political and economic crusade and win to herself such numbers that she could impose her will and her solutions upon all. We need not point out that Christ and His apostles had no political programme for the settlement and cure of the social anomalies and iniquities of their day. We need not not to say this method has never been successful either at Geneva or Rome—though the Roman Catholic church has not yet learned the lesson. Nevertheless the Church and every child of God have definite tasks and responsibilities in this present crisis. The fault and failure lie not in any lack of God’s provision, but simply in man’s greed. Thus the problem of the better social order is always bound up in the problem of the better man. The Churches’ duty is to proclaim to the world the clear principles of’God which alone preserve and exalt human life, and to make plain pronouncement upon all pressing moral problem^—for at heart all political, industrial and social problems are moral. To-day the Church must say with the utmost frankness that the “good old rule, the simple plan, that he may take who has the power, and he may keep who can,” must be replaced in every private and public practice by the Golden Rule. She must preach not only the stewardship of wealth and the dignity of labour, but her loudest proclamation should be of the three fundamental social laws of Jesus Christ, service, sacrifice and love, and that whatever in social dealing cannot be squared with them is sin against God. And it is not enough to proclaim these things even from the high sanctuaries of God and from such influential rostrums as the League of Nations, we must live them and practice them daily. It is here the reproach of the modem situation lies heavily upon us. Our Christian witness in every walk of life is sicklied over with insincerity and unrighteousness, the leaven of Christ in us has become savourless, and the torch of truth and right bums but dimly. With the millions of Christ’s followers in every nation organised selfishness and wrongdoing on any large scale, ought to be impossible. Let us, however, repeat again the fundamental social laws of Jesus Christ—service, sacrifice and love. Let us say that whatever others may do for Christians the obligation is clear. And if God’s children can only follow.the ancient prophet’s precept, do. justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God, a new idealism will possess our world and better arid worthier days must come. So inay poor, sad humanity turn back to the simple word the Master taught, “Not he that repeateth the name, but he that doeth the will.” 0 God of mercy, God of might, In love and pity infinite, Teach us as ever in Thy sight, To live our life in Thee.