GHURCH AND LABOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 15 July 1918, Page 1

GHURCH AND LABOUR

ARCHBISHOP O’SHEA ON

THE QUESTION

Wellington, July ir. Archbishop O’Shea, in his add ess to the Catholic Federation of he Diocese in conference to-day, said : We—the Church and the Federation—have been accused by tins noisy fraternity of having entered into some unholy secret conspiracy with the present leaders of the ; Labour movement in New Zealand, : and the Church, as well as Labour, has been denounced from pulpit and platlorm as the enemies of the coin- | try. The Labour leaders have replied pretty effectively to the Orange misrepresentations. Of course, there has been no such thing - as a com- ■ pact between the Catholic Church or the Federation and any party, Labour or other. The Catholic Church does not make compacts ' with any political party. She is ; above and outside ot politics. Her : office is to teach men the principles of right and justice, but the carrying j out of these principles in the con ! Crete she leaves to the Parliaments : or Governments of the country, i But the Church true to her prin- . ciples and history, is always found j on the side of the weak and on the ;

side of justice to all, no matter wha class they belong to, hence it is r.ol strange that her bishops and organisations should express sympathy with and approval of the efforts ol Labour people to obtain for the worker a more proportionate share of the fruits of his labour and more seemly conditions in which to live. This has ever been the attitude ol the Catholic Church during the whole course of her history, and it will ever be her attitude in the future, no matter how her enemies may threaten and bluster. Her efforts have frequently'been threatened by unscrupulous men in positions of power or authority, and for the last three centuries especially there has been what was aptly named by a distinguished fesuit, the suppressed Catholicism of labour struggling to force itself through the shell of an unnatural and an un-Christian order and, according to some people—people who are nowadays the surviving exponents ol the policy of thwarting the Church’s efforts it is a ciime lor Catholic bishops and organisations to express sympathy with the just aspirations of the. worker, and to urge their people to study how best to help the realisation ot these aspirations along safe and Christian lines. But it is no sin at all for the Orangemen to conduct a propaganda amongst the workers in the factory, in the work-shop, in the docks, and

elsewhere—a propaganda, too, that has for its object not the betterment of the conditions of the workers, but the securing- of votes to further a spirit of uncharitableness and hatred amongst their fellow men, and above all to encourage a spirit of division amongst the workers of different creeds and classes, so thatbecoming a disordered rabble, they may continue to be exploited by the great and powerful few. This sums up the present agitation on the part of an underground fraternity that has never, during its his-

tory, been tbe friend of the worker. On the contrary, wherever its influence has been felt as in the manufacturing districts _of the North of Ireland, wages were lower and the conditions of living infinitely worse than in any other part of the British Dominions. All the camouflage in the world, and all the fiery oratory of the lodges cannot explain away facts, and so we may safely leave their ebullition to the common sense of the peop'e of New Zealand, whose just aspirations for their conditions and a fairer distribution of tilings are m t going to be side-tracked this way.