CHRISTIAN ORDER CAMPAIGN

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 292, 8 September 1942, Page 4

CHRISTIAN ORDER CAMPAIGN

Archdeacon Bollock’s Views EQUAL CONSIDERATION & JUST REWARD

Dominion Special Service. CHRISTCHURCH, September 7.

“The Church must convert the individual and mould society; no amount of piety can make up for the lack of the social sense,” declared the Ven. Archdeacon Bullock closing his address tonight in the first of a series of four national addresses on the campaign for Christian order. The talk, entitled “Let Justice Be Done” and broadcast from the national stations in the four main centres, appealed for equality of consideration and for reward for labour which did not interfere with the basic needs of others. “The incorruptibility of our legal men can be called one of our greatest gifts to civilization,” he said, “but it would not be satisfactory all the time unless we knew and loved truth. Our laws might be far from our ideal, but ill-conceived tinkering by sectional interests would bring its own day of reckoning.” The administration of the law required acute and trained minds without political bias. He considered that the Germans would be. the first to regret the placing of justice under what Hitler had called the lash of national necessity. “Every law is unjust to some, such as the Fair Rents Act, and no legal system is concerned with the whole of life ; for example, a person is sent to jail for stealing his neighbour’s purse, but he escapes punishment for corrupting the mind of his neighbour’s daughter,” said the archdeacon. No law could bo ideal while the rich went jauntily to the Courts and the poor were deterred by the expense. Economic equality was one way by which philosophers had sought the answer to the cry for justice. This seemed fair inasmuch as each had basic needs, but they were also unequal in capacities and powers. Others attempted to find the solution by giving to each his ,<lue.. Despite the difficulty in achieving the ideal, it was the business of the Church to work toward the ideal, though it knew there could be on Utopia where there was greed and selfishness. Value as Human Beings. “Equality of consideration, which is another way of saying the golden rule, by; which men are valued as human • beings and not as economic machnies, because we are all the children of God, is the only basis I can see for a scheme of social justice,’' declared the speaker. The purpose of production should be the good and the service of the consumer,, he continued, after a humorous aside in which he divided people into three classes: the haves, the have nots, and' those who were being had. It was not implied that there should be no profits which he considered inevitable. Scientific organization had made it possible, to produce enough to abolish poverty, which was not inevitable but man-made. Poverty had not been abolished because they had not succeeded in equalizing need and purchasing power. “There will never be equality of reward, but no reward should interfere with the basic needs of others,” he asserted. Labour should be given its proper share in the management of industry. Among the implications of the campaign for Christian order as affecting justice to children was that there should be no hindrance to cducatoin and that there should be adequate housing to meet the needs of families.