Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1921. CHURCHES AND POLITICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2317, 18 August 1921, Page 2

Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1921. CHURCHES AND POLITICS.

IN an address to the General Assembly of Calvauistic Methodists, Mr Lloyd George advised the religions bodies of the country to refrain from taking part in discussions on controversial .subjects, which more properly belonged to the sphere of politics.* The coalmining dispute and the Irish question were among the instances he quoted, in which participation by a chitrch coulu be of little sendee to the cause in question. Mr Lloyd George said that there would be great questions in the future affecting the relations of capital and labour, how to create and how to distribute wealth. The great controversies of the immediate future would rage round those issues. Once theyintroduced debate upon those into the Churches “the work of the Churches will be neglected, and for the decent transaction of the spiritual affairs of the Churches 1 will be substituted a series of prolonged and heated political

controversies.” Dealing with tin question of temperance, he said that not only had the Churches there a right to interfere directly; it was their imperative duty to exert the whole of their influence to promote the cause of sobriety by every means in their power. They should do so without any regard to the effect which their interference might havo upon the fortunes of any or all political parties. Speaking of the great issue of peace on earth, Mr Lloyd George said: “There must be some influence that will deal with the heart, of the people! The conscience of the people must be trained so that it shall abhor bloodshed as a crime. 'Whether the Covenant of the League of Nations is the best: organisation for the purpose, or whether the American proposition is more likely to succeed, that, 1 respectfully suggest,' is not for the Churches to discuss. It is for them to create the atmosphere.” The same observation applied to industrial warfare. There would be disputes in the future as to wages and conditions of labour, and how profits were to he distributed. In these struggles the Christian Churches could express no opinion as to the merits without stepping outside their legitimate function and imperilling their greater influence. Rut they could ingeminate a greater spirit, of goodwill between the classes, a greater readiness to look at each other’s point of view.