Dollars Before People

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 27, 5 March 1948, Page 4

Dollars Before People

We were putting dollars before people, Mr Climo contended, and in doing so were allowing the cries of the masses to be over-ruled. Even now there were whispers of a return to the early 1930’5. If that came about there would again be acute scarcity of the means to purchase necessities, yet why was it that in another kind of national emergency, a war, there was never any talk of finances giving out? Surely the protection of a nation from starvation merited the same whole-hearted effort as the protection of a nation against the armies of another? “It’s no use blaming ‘lsms’, sys- ' terns, Governments, damning any particular party. The cause is deeper rooted than that,” Mr Climo persued. “That cause is the concern of the Church, and the trend of world events the concern of every Christian. The Church has an answer to give to a divided world that has got .? its life all twisted and wrong, to a world morally and spiritually bankrupt, to a world heading towards further destruction of the masses. Church And Politics “It is said the Church should keep silent concerning politics. That is not so if politics are corrupt. The . voice of the Church should be heard today. .

If any Churchman is satisfied with things as they are ‘and with the trend of world events, with a world of greed, graft and selfishness, with a world of men arguing dollars while people go hungry, that man is blind to the world-wide purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Every new. ‘lsm’, Mr Climo said, was merely a patch on the tattered garment of an impoverished world, and he recalled Christ’s references to the uselessness of patching an old garment. Yet ‘isms’, new manmade orders, party politics could not create an Utopian 'world' of equality of men where money was the servant rather than the master. New World—God’s Way “So long as the mighty dollar beckons the worship of men,” he said, “we will go on breeding graft, greed and covetousness. A fine new world of corrected economy, of happy social relationships, is. possible only one way. God must purge men of those three ’ evils, and man must realise his world is distorted because he himself is- distorted. “The real issues of life that make for sympathy and understanding between men, the things that count and make for peace, the happy relationships that are vital for world harmony and prosperity cannot be bought for cash. “All the wealth of the world cannot give us a better world of men or women. God can. And the price of such a world, as God would have it, has been met by God Himself—on Calvary,” Mr Climo concluded. “A community of peaceful citizens,' a cleansed society sharing this world’s wealth unselfishly and without graft is possible— God’s way.”