DRIFT TO COMMUNISM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 9

DRIFT TO COMMUNISM

“ROOTING-UP OF ALL THAT IS GOOD.’’ MR. 11. M. CAMPBELL’S ADVICE TO PUPILS. HASTINGS, Dec. 19. "You have witnessed the trend of affairs to-day, you have seen that our country and the whole world is drifting toward Communism. There is no getting away from the fact that Communism is absolutely contrary to all Christian principles; it is a rooting-up of all that is good.” With these words, Mr. H. M. Campbell concluded a short address to pupils and parents at the annual break-up ceremony of lona College, Havelock North. Mr. Campbell contended that the absence of religion from the curriculum of State schools was in some measure responsible for the drift of New Zealand and of the world as a whole toward Communism.

Mr. Campbell reviewed the early history of lona College and the men who had founded it, mentioning the names of the Rev. Mr. White, the late Mr. Hugh Campbell, Messrs. Archibald McLean, William Cooper, Mason Chambers and Miss Fraser. All their work was done without the slightest idea of personal gain whatever, said Mr. Campbell, and he believed they did it because they could clearly see the trouble that was coming to us -that was on us to-day.

"I am convinced that much of this trouble is due to our public educational system, which is free, compulsory and secular, with most emphasis on the secular," he said. "Unless some effort is made to arrest the completely-secular training of young people and more trouble taken to teach distinctions between right and wrong I feel we are heading for more trouble and that the old Empire will fall. You girls can be a great power for good in the world if you go the right, way, and you can do a great deal for your country and Empire. “The song you sang to-night was entitled ‘Wake-Up,’ and it is high time that we did wake up, the lot of us. “I make an appeal to you to see that the drift to Communism is stopped, and it is only by teaching young people that it can be stopped. If it goes much further our 2000 years of civilisation and Empire building will go like chaff before the wind. You who are about to leave school will realise that you are the ones who will have to get down to it and do it and do it through the young people.” Mr. Campbell’s remarks were loudly applauded by the audience.