SOCIAL UNREST.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1578, 23 October 1912, Page 3

SOCIAL UNREST.

ADDRESS BV BISHOP AVERILL.

The Anglican Synod of the Diocese of Wuiapu was opened on Friday. Tho Jtilsliop (Dr. Averill) concluded his address with a reference to the social unrest.

Dr. Averill said: It is perfectly obvious that tliore is a general disktisi'action with our present economic and industrial system, ami that the wage-earn-ers consider, rightly or wrongly, tlint they are entitled to a greater share in the, profits which they have done so much to produce. Is this desire altogether unnatural:- The great mass of the working men in England are not iconoclasts or anti-religious Socialists nor do they desire tho overthrow of the present constitution, but they wlint justice, they want In live their lives, they want some security of tenure in their employment, they want to work without the possibility of starvation staring their families and themselves in the face upon a week's notice, they want to feel that they are treated as human beings and not merely "hands," they want to see something better than tho "workhouse" awaiting'them in their old age. I am well aware that these nobler aspirations are often caricatured and obscured by the. words and actions of a noisy minority whose ideals nre purely iconoclastic and revolutionary, and whoso aims are purely felfish and materialistic The duty of the Church is to analyse sympathetically and sift the true from the false m the ideals of Socialism, to seek for the essence out of the mass of exaggeration and carcicature, to separate what is of God from what is purely of man, and then to support and direct what is essentially Christian and to oppose what is anti-Christian, and purely materialistic. Again, it is the duty of (lie Church to realise that all Socialists are not plunderers, and that, the cry for Justice is not always a weapon for self-aggrandise; incut, ft is the duty of the Church to study more carefully the ethfcal leaching of Jesus, to apply its permanent principles to the problems of the 20th century, and to bring all attempts to reconstruct social or economic systems to the bar of His judgment. Christianity has no opposition to offer to the 1 rue ideals of Socialism, viz., a better world, better men, better conditions, but affirms tlint a better world can only be produced by better men and not merely by education or increased material advantages. The history of our own times bears ample testimony to that fact. Christianity further affirms that tho question underlying what may seem on the surface to be political, economic, and social, is really a question of life, and therefore conies distinctively within.the province of religion. The revolutionary Socialist, and tho purely ethical Socialist can never really touch the depths of tho. movement for they only interpret life in the terms of materialism. It is only the Christian who can really solve I lie" problem, and moreover tho Christian who realises that practice and conduct cannot be divorced from faith and worship. If Christianity were really lived, there would be uo room for Socialism, but is Christianity being lived in our social, commercial, . fir political life? Has Christianity been really tried? Is it not foolish, therefore, to talk about tho failure of Christianity to solve our social troubles? The churchman has a great part to play at the present time in interpreting the meaning of the "present distress," in teaching more faithfully the duties and responsibilities of the members of the sac.ial body, in upholding boldly llio teaching of Christ, in himself .living his belief in the Fatherhood of God and tho brotherhood of man, and in fulfilling his own duty of social service." The Church has a message for- every class, and this she can deliver without any ignorant meddling in purely economic readjustment by urging that His duty of brotlferhood requires, that men should seek to mnko the conditions of life- such that as many as possible should survive and make tho best of their lives. The Church must ever oppose egoism and individualism, whether manifested in selfish case, comfort, and indilferenccitif tho welfare of others on the one side or by indifference to-the rights'of others and anarchy on the other. The Church must teach that the law of love can alono produce the ideal of brotherhood, and'the betterment of individual character, without .which there can be no real solution of the social question and little hopo for a better world, better manhood, and better conditions of life. s