The Game of Politics.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 5, 31 January 1912, Page 70

The Game of Politics.

In a concluding lecture to the Women’s Diocesan Association. Dean Inge, of Westminster, expressed the opinion that it was exceedingly difficult if not impossible for a Christian to be an effective politician, and. accepting! his premises, it is not easy to see how one can avoid coming to his conclusion. The Dean accepts a saying of Jowett’s to the effect that you cannot manage men unless you are a bit of a rogue, though he admits that Jowett’s rogueries were of the comparatively harmless kind. He adds that Christianity always appeals to what is best in man, am, never countenances the attaining of good ends through unscrupulous policy. According to the Dean it is un-Ghristian to humour the weakness of one man and the vanity cf another, and he gently insinuates that without such diplomacy the game of politics cannot be carried on. Recent conversation with a high eeclesiatical dignitary leads us to suspect that flumeshes of the Dean’s argument are much closer than he supposes. This gentleman confessed that his duties as an organiser in a large religious community made it impossible for him to foe a saint. Tn managing men he had often, he said, to be sparing of the truth, and was sometimes compelled to resort to mild deceptions. A political yii epuller, commenting on the difiiev ! ' the Dean has tied himself up i. a rot through ignoring the obvious fact that the Gospel exhortation to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves not only permits but enjoins the kind of management of which Jowett approved.