INDUSTRIAL UNREST

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 129, 25 February 1919, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL UNREST

-j—, RESOLUTION OF PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY IDEA OF A CLASS WAR CONDEMNED By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, February 24. The .Presbyterian Assembly to-night, on the motion of ,tho Kev. I. Jolly, carried the following motion:—"The Asseniby' notes with keen interest the industrial unrest whicli exists in our time, an unrest which is seen and felt in our Dominion, and which is far more in evidence in the Old Land and in the chief nations in" Europe and America. The .Assembly feels that the, mere existence of this unrest is not to bo deplored. ■ In some respects it is something for which we have to thank God. To far too great ail extent our modern industrial arrangements have nimed at tho protection of wealth, irrespective of the condition in which it placed the worker. They tended to the protection of vast fortunes on the one hand and to poverty on the other. Too frequently the niuial personality was sacrificed to the machinery for the production of wealth. The worker ceased to be a mail and became h mere machine. It would be a calamity if the classes who fought and won in the great fight for democracy should acquiesce in the perpetuation of these conditions. We may hope and pray for the coming pi a better world for the worker. This must be the case if the Kingdom of God is to come among us. Whilo confining itself generally to - the statement of principles tho Assembly feels that the revelation given through tho recent epidemic of the deplorable way in which many of the workers of New Zealand are housed, a state of things being revealed that is strongly mimical to their moral and physical health, calls for a strong declaration that it is the duty ■ either of the Government _or of the local authorities to take action to secure decent homes for the people. The Assembly, however, is profoundly convinced that if the state of things desirejl is to come to -pass, both workers and employers will need to_ faco tho industrial question in the spirit of the Gospel of Christ. Only as our industrial system is leavened with the ethics of Christianity will industrial and social.conditions become satisfactory. The employer will need to remember that the worker is a. man, and a brother for whom Christ died, and that ho has sacred rights that must not .be set aside, and the worker will need to remember that he has duties as well as rights, and only through the discharge of those duties by liini can our national life prosper. The Assembly would protest strongly against the idea of a class war,' which some men would introduce into industrial relations. Such an idea; is as foolish as it is • un-Christian. If largely acted upon, it can only lead to disaster in the body politic as well as 'in the physical body. The band cannot say to the head 'I have no need of thee.' The Assembly* .would suggest that our industrial relations should pin lake of the nature of co-operation rather than of the conflict of interests that has so largely characterised the past. The Assembly would urge upon the people of the_ Chnrch the duty of carrying the ethics of Christianity into onr industrial relations, that more and more the Kingdom of God may be seen among us,"