FOR LIBERTY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1754, 1 September 1917, Page 1

FOR LIBERTY.

AN APPEAL AND A REPLY.

A striking response to the appeal by Sir Joseph Ward to ministers of religion to place the matter of tho War Loan before their respective congregations was made by the Rev, W, S. Rollings in the Brooklyn Baptist Church, Wellington, on Sunday evening last. He said in part:

“As a Christian minister I would like to make a humble and earnest appeal to Sir Joseph Ward, on the same high grounds upon which he has appealed to me. We arc living in a great and solemn time. And a great crisis like the present demands as national leaders great and noble hearts. New Zealand so far has brought to birth no such men. In the hour of our country’s peril and of freedom’s travail we behold in Parliament a breed of politicians and moral mannikins; mcii who can waste days in discussing such themes as a penny (or is it a halfpenny?) a pound war lax on but-ter-fat, when Destiny’s hour is about to strike. When all that sacred heritage our noble sires have won for us through age-long struggles and martyrdoms is in jeopardy! But, if wo may give full value to the sentiments of Sir Joseph Ward’s letter, it supplies those who believe that this world is built on mortal foundations, and that the moral question must decide the fate or destiny of our nation, a new ground for hope. It sounds a now note of leadership. And if Sir Joseph Ward will frame a financial and national policy consistent with the moral and spiritual principles for which we Christians stand, and commit to such his political faith and career, there will wait upon him the great opportunity of his life; and he may earn the undying gratitude of the new nation which will emerge after the war. At the present time, rightly or wrongly, it is beyond question that the people as a whole have lost faith in the Government : It is deeply and darkly distrusted by many; despised by more; it is feared by a few; and loved by none. In view of the stupendous problems that face us, national unity, backed by political solidarity, is a desperate need. And it appears to some of us who are not politicians, but who strive to be good citizens, that the great task of statesmanship that calls for fulfilment is that which confronted Lincoln in the hour of his country’s peril; and which he so nobly attempted and achieved: To restore the government to the confidence and affection of the people ‘by making it express, as it was intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty.’ One great fact seems to be only partially recognised by the Government, and in its administration has had only a partial application: That the war has antiquated everything that has gone before it.

“ ‘New occasions teach new duties, Times makes ancient good uncouth.’

“The people of this Dominion, for the defence of freedom, have made undreamed surrenders and sacrifices. There has been an immense enlargement of the authority and power of the Government through the war. There has been a corresponding contraction in the area of personal, social, and political liberty. The Government, in the name of Empire, necessity, may take the father from his children, the pastor from his Hock; may ask of the widow her only son. And the manhood and womanhood of the country have not said it nay. Honour to our sacrificial sons! Honour to the noble motherhood, wifehood, and fatherhood of the Dominion ■which have nobly bowed to the demands of limitless sacrifice! WEALTH LEFT UNTOUCHED.

“But here comes the great and appalling fact from a Christian point of view: Life and liberty are conseribed to the utmost degree of sacrifice, while, the Dominion’s wealth is exempted to such a degree that we cannot trace on its huge and still increasing bulk the faintest streak of blood! For all that the seemingly large war taxes demand of wealth is as the crumbs which fall from the rich man’s fat tables. Dives can still in New Zealand wear the modern equivalent of purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. Nay, he may even mint the sacrificial blood of the nation into gold, and swell his fortune by huge extra profits due to the awful incidence of the war. Is it fair, is it just, that financial interests, in this crimsoned hour of national life, should still retain their old rights, their old privileges, and make their old demands? “The illogical and tragic position at the present time is this: To take a man’s life is lawful conscription for tne sake of preserving national freedom. But to succeed in this great enterprise, Sui Joseph Ward

says money is just as necessary. Very well. Then as far as can be done equalise the sacrifice! If to take a man’s life and liberty is lawful conscription, why should the taking of a man’s surplus wealth or total war profits be regarded as an act of confiscation: “THE REALM OF SACRIFICE.” “I believe that multitudes of people in this Dominion who do not subscribe to I he-creed of the Socialist (and among them some of the' rich) believe that the time and opportunity have come for Sir Joseph Ward to do a heroic and just thing: To raise the department of national finance into the realm of sacrifice; to bring the wealth of the eommuni(y into harmony with the undaunted spirit of the heroes who at Gallipoli, in the Somme Valley, and at Messines Ridge, answered duty’s call with the ‘last full measure of devo-tion.’-A community which can use its blood-bought freedom to spend £8,000,000 a year on drink and gambling should be compelled to contribute £12,000,000 to the national exchequer. And that not as a profitable investment which will chiefly add to the burdens which press on the backs of the toilers and the poor, but as a contribution to the cause for which thousands are. giving that which they would not surrender for all the gold in the nation, their liberty and their life.”