The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1943. THE SEED OF AN ELECTION MESSAGE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 6, 2 October 1943, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1943. THE SEED OF AN ELECTION MESSAGE

One of the incidents of the recent election campaign was the publication of a “message” to electors entitled Action for Christian Order. Issued under the auspices of the Campaign for Christian Order some 250,000 copies were put into circulation. Its ostensible purpose was to focus the minds of the electors upon certain principles of vital importance to the welfare of the State as a whole, principles founded upon Christian doctrine. Its motive was frankly political though aloof from Party Politics. “Politics,” it declared, “is a sphere of Christian action . . . the putting into action of Christian ideals.” This statement can hardly be questioned in a country, professedly Christian, in which the sittings of Parliament, the highest institution in the land, are formally opened with an invocation to Divine Providence. Nor can it be doubted that this method of raising the political problems of the times to the higher plane of ethical values was bound to have some effect on the public mind. The definite questioning attitude of people toward Government and the management of public affairs very probably had made them more than usually susceptible to new angles of approach to these problems, to new lines of thought on politics and principles. , - , • So many different factors, however, play a part in shaping the decision of the electorate on polling day that it is only possible to draw broad inferences from the general swing of public opinion as indicated by the voting. One clear inference, for example, is that the people as a whole are not satisfied with present Government policies and methods. This aspect of the result has already been discussed in these columns. It is a more difficult matter to diagnose m detail the various contributory causes and assign to each its relative degiee of influence. But if we admit the existence of a questioning attitude in the public mind, it is reasonable to believe that the election message of the Campaign for Christian Order was not wihout some effect on the thoughts of people who took the trouble to read and digest its contents. Many of the statements made were in line with much ot the public thinking of the times. Added to them was the weight of ethical sanctions and of unquestionable sincerity of purpose and aims. As an illustration, there is this statement, associated with a warning of the dangers inherent in a decline in public respect for Parliament: Where members of Partiament are more concerned with intrigue and party advantage than with truly representing their electorate, where sectional interests try to override Parliament through pressure groups outside, where people inside or outside Parliament cast slurs on the character and motives of those who hold different political opinions, there the decay of democracy begins. Other matters of public interest affecting the general welfare included the principles of post-war social reforms as viewed in the international perspective. Nearer home, of urgent concern to New Zealand people, were social problems touching the welfare of the family and the home, the importance of which has been stressed from time to time in these columns. There was in this field, it was urged, an obligation upon our representatives in Parliament to face up to all the. complicated factors which impinge upon family life. “Has your candidate,’ it was asked, “ever come down out of the clouds of more spectacular issues to give these very homely questions any constructive thought? Education, the art of living, social diseases, the tremendous importance of our rural industries, were also discussed in articles posing provocative questions. But the question fundamental to a complete apswer to all ot them, said Action, was the important one of reanimating the Christian religious impulse as a social and political force, a force deliberately and purposefully generated in the schools, permeating the mentality and influencing the actions of our future citizenship. . Whatever may have been the real extent of the influence upon the minds of the electors, of this sowing of the seed, those directing the movement for Christian Order must realize that continuous effort in the advocacy of the principles animating it is essential. One of the main precepts of education is that it is a continuous process. Ihe Campaign for Christian Order is essentially a campaign of public education. It should therefore be systematic and persistent, not spasmodic, if the ends are to be achieved.