AT THE METHODIST CONFERENCE.

Press, Issue 14828, 20 November 1913, Page 8

AT THE METHODIST CONFERENCE.

A MINISTER'S VIEW. In his address to the Methodist Conference yesterday morning, as actingpresident, the Rev. C. Laws said they wero "in the midst of a grave industrial crisis." He said: —"Wherever in this controversy wild words have been spoken and a-policy of embitterment and auger suggested to men, a wrong has been done: for that is contrary to the Christian law and can forward in no permanent way a just cause. And wherever men are refusing to seek the spirit of honourable compromise and by mere superior might desire to humiliate and defeat their brother men, the law of Christ is equally broken. Half a dozen men, chosen for their honour and capacity and with a judgment unclouded by anything that has been done during the past unfortunate days, would, within twenty-four hours, find absolution of the points at issue that would commend itself to three-fourths . of the public of the Dominion. "This present industrial crisis is but a wiive, and a comparatively small one, an the great unresting ocean of which the world is full. The column that deals with labour troubles is now a standing one in the daily Press, an_ every civilised country contributes its quota to it. The fiery torch that heralds a new age is passing from hand to band and circles the world. A profound dissatisfaction with things as they are. a gathering determination that aU men shall have a man's share m good, a vision, surely born of God, that the State suffers by h. the impoverishment of tho many at the ■ expense of the few and by all that de- ■ mes to any part of its citizens the lei- ■ sure and comfort and education in H which alone can they contribute* to the X common good a cultivated manhood

and an effective capacity for affairs — these are the marks not of a moribund age, but of an approaching re-birth of tho world. The present "order is too deeply penetrated with grave inequalities and injustice for mc to pray that it may. continue. It is true that in so for as the modern competitive system assimilates itself to the heartlessness and trickery of war, it is essentially contrary to that Golden Rule which lays its great imperative upon every righteous man among us."