Moral Principles and Politics.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18235, 20 November 1924, Page 8

Moral Principles and Politics.

The House of Representatives has, any time during the past thirty years—or,. if one chooses, during the whole of its existence—been open to criticism from many points of view, but it has never deserved, and does not at the present time deserve, the reproach implied m the resolution carried on Tuesday by the Presbyterian Assembly. The resolution urged "the importance of esti"mating adherence to moral principles "higher than party when returning "members to Parliament," and the mover of the resolution, whoso views were unanimously endorsed by the Assembly, said that there was ground for pessimism and that the people should "take a more lively interest in the "type of men being sent to Parliament." The burden of his complaint was that the Christian spirit is ignored, and that the "moral rights" of Christians are being "filched" from them, by Parliament. How he would define the "moral rights" supposed to have been taken away by Parliament we cannot guess, but what he means by Christianity we may infer from his reference to the gaming and licensing laws. We do not think we are misinterpreting the Assembly's mind on the relation of religion to politics if we assume that its resolution means that the Assembly believes that in choosing members of Parliament the electors ought to reject any candidate who is not opposed to betting, to drinking, and (another discussion at the Assembly permits us to add) to dancing. If a majority of the electors were so foolish as to take this advice, racing, drinking, and dancing would no doubt be prohibited, but there would be no diminution whatever of the evils produced by the vice and folly of men. In the meantime the general government of the State would be in the care of a Parliament whose members would not have been chosen for their competence to devise practical means of dealing with the roally important problems of the time. Pew people will care to dispute that the defence of moral principles is a higher duty than the defence of party, but we should- like to know why the General Assembly should imply that the two things are incompatible. The Assembly would not have cast this slur upon the political parties and upon the electors who vote, as rational electors do, on party lines, if its understanding of moral principles were the same as that of .ordinary mortals. Prohibitionists and the opponents of betting find it difficult, no doubt, to believe that a man can be saved who is opposed to Prohibition or who sees no moral wrong in betting. But since they can see with their, own eyes, since it is within their own knowledge, that those Christian virtues concerning which there is no dispute flower, and always have flowered, as wholesomely amongst those who bet and drink as amongst those who do not, they ought to hesitate about claiming the sanction, of moral truth for their peculiar antipathies. The present Parliament is hostile to the Assembly's opinions concerning betting and liquor, but we dare to say that it is as honest a guardian of moral principles as any Church in the world, and that neither morality nor good government would be advanced "by a Parliament of men selected because of their tdevotion to "moral principles" which are merely narrow prejudices relating to some minor social customs.