CHURCH AND LABOUR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 17 October 1907, Page 3

CHURCH AND LABOUR.

Auckland, October 16

At the men’s mass meeting held in connection with the Baptist Union Conference, the Rev. J. J. North, of Wellington, speaking on the attitude of the church towards the labour problem, declared it as his belief that the working man was the only one who had a right to be on this planet. He was a working man. The blood of working men was older than the Norman blood, and was infinitely more respectable. Though the cities in New Zealand were small, the clounds were already beginning to appear, and when these towns became more populous they would find that the clouds then would cover the sky. He came from a city where they had a land problem. In Wellington the land had gone up to such an enormous value that the ordinary citizen, the working man, was only able to tenant a house with a back yard as large as a blanket, and they paid rents which made even Londoners open their Men had grown rich in Wellington while others slept. He proceeded to denounce the competitive system, which, he said, was responsible for many of the evils that now existed. He confessed that the antagonism which existed between ihe church and many of the Labor people was largely the fault of the church. The church had been plagued by conservatism and intolerence, neither of which should exist. Then again, it had committed another blunder by being too slow to move intellectually, but this had not always been the case. When he heard it stated that the church was the ally of the existing state of things, of the land monopoly, of the competitive system, his blood boiled. He believed that through the Church of Christ they would be able to accomplish much towards the solution of the present social problems. If he felt that the Church could not assist in putting matters to rights, then he would be done with her. They should endeavour to create a healthy public opinion without which everything would go wrong. The golden age was coming, and it was coming along the lines of morality and self-sacrifice, which the Church, through Christ, could do so much to induce. If the Socialists wished to succeed, they could only do so by the aid of that moral enthusiasm which Christianity led. (Applause.)