MR J. T. LANG

Hokitika Guardian, 29 December 1933, Page 8

MR J. T. LANG

PAST TWENTY YEARS REVIEWED

LABOUR AND RELIGION. SYDNEY, December 24. Mr J. T. Lang, leader of the Labour Party in New South Wales, last week celebrated tho 20th anniversary of his entry into the State Parliament, and the occasion has been one of much rejoicing among his followers. At an enthusiastic function, at which he was presented wbh an illuminated address, Mr Lang made references to religion and polities, especially "as regards the Labour movement, and he expressed the view that in Australia a. great fight for financial freedom w.as pending. Mr Lang also liad something to say on the question of traitors in the movement to which he has devoted so much of his. energy.

In his reply to many glowing speeches Mr Lang, said that service in the cause of the. Labour movement w~s the highest form of ennoblement that man could achieve. . He had always viewed the Labour cause as one as sacred as any religion—not as a separate, material religion, but something which was complementary t 0 Christianity. Any man who claimed to be a Labour man, and yet rejected pr despised the Christian religion was a hypocrite, because the Labour Party's fight all the time was for the lewly, and the oppressed and the weak. 'Many a man had set out to serve the people, but when he had arrived .at a position when he was able to bring some substantial improvement to those who had started him out on public life he hid forgotten his beginning and he had gone over to the enemy.

i “That is likely to happen to any man who does not continually remind himself that he is a Labour man,” said Mr Lang. “Every Labour man in public life should make a practice of saying to himself every day: ‘I am a Labour man. The Labour movement made me, and the Labour movement can destroy me.’ If, in repeating that to himself, he finds it brings peace and contentment, he is in no danger. But, if there comes a. day when lie finds himself questioning the truth of that statement, that, perhaps, the movement is not as grateful to him as itshould be, then that man is well on the road to the enemy’s camp.” ; ‘