RELIGION AND LABOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1134, 23 May 1911, Page 5

RELIGION AND LABOUR.

SPEECH BY N.S.W. PREMIER. SOCIALISM AND THE BIBLE. Bj Telegraph—Press Associalion-Oopyriebt London, Stay 21. Mr. M'Gowen, Premier of New South Wales, speaking at the Browning Settlement fit Walworth, denied the newspaper statement that Socialism had expelled the Bible. An individual could not build up a fino character unless he looked to a Higher Being. Materialists had not mado themselves felt in Australia. The Stato told the clergy that the schools were open to them to impart religious instruction. He added that reformers in promoting legislation to improve industrial conditions had received somo assistance of a perfunctory kind from the churches and other parties. THE FELLOWSHIP OF FOLLOWERS. The Browning Settlement was founded in ISOS and incorporated in 1903. It aims at the promotion of a friendly understanding between the Labour movement and religion. It consists of members of several denominations who share in the work without any prejudice to their particular denominational loyalty; but in order to express their common religious aim and to enjoy religious friondsJiip there has been formed in connection with the Settlement the "Fellowship of Followers," .whose members aro enrolled on signing the following declaration:—

Jesus said: "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." Meaning so to follow Him, I wish to be enrolled in tho Fellowship of Followers.

No fewer than seventeen Labour members of the British Parliament, besides other prominent Labour leaders, signed this declaration in 1910. These include such well-known names as Kier-Hardie, G. N. Barnes, A. Henderson, J. A. Seddon; D. J. Shackleton, P. Knowdon, A. Stanley, and G. Lansbury. Mr. Seddon, writing in connection with the movement, states: "I am more and more convinced that whatever may bo our economics, unless wo have the ethics and spirit of Christ, effort will be useless." Mr. Stanley writes: "It is only as social reform is wedded to spiritual uplifting that man realises the full development of all his faculties and the broadest life." In an address lost year at tho Browning Settlement Mr. lveir Hardie stated that the Labour movement could not afford to neglect Christianity, and referred to the most remarkable change which had come over the movement in recent years both in Britain and on the Continent. He. said: "Great leaders like Jean Jaures in France, Vanderveldo in Belgium, and others less known in Germany have been discovering what some of us who aro olderfashioned havo never forgotten—that behind Nature tliero is a Power, unseen but felt; that beyond death thero must bo a Something, else were life on earth a mere Wastage: and that idea is permeating tho entire movement." Tho addresses on Labour and Religion delivered at tho Settlement by ten Labour members in 1010 have been published in book form with sympathetic letters from tho Archbishop ,of York, tho Bishop of Winchester, and Bishop. Welldon. It may be mentioned that Mr. M'Gowcn, the Premier of New South Wales, is an Anglican Churchman and superintendent of one of the Sydney Sunday schools.