FALLACY OF SOCIALISM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2703, 4 March 1924, Page 2

FALLACY OF SOCIALISM.

THE view that Socialism is not in itself a Christian thing was presented with vigorous argument and frank expression by Prebendary A. W. Gough in a sermon in London recently. He said he knew many bishops and clergy thought otherwise, but nothing that lie had read of their opinions or heard from their lips had altered his conviction that since Socialism essentially levelled down the powers of human life instead of encouraging them to he lifted up, it went against progress and against human welfare. To his mind, it lowered our human dignity and brought it under a machine. It exalted that which was feeble, and depressed that which was strong. 1l tended to excessive and sentimental passions, wlich was a different thing from tJie great force which we called Christian love. It tended in the cud to privilege the unworthy, and in that way to stop the movement toward human welfare, it tended to inculcate a hatred of ability, penalising and placing an undue burden on ability and it was against that, profound and fundamentally Christian doctrine that individual life was meant to be a free thing in communion with God, and in the expression of its powers in the world. Nothing was more appalling, if it were possible, than an ustabnshed Socialist tyranny over the soul and life of England. England might endure a Socialist Government if it abstained from measures which were disastrously Socialistic but against that which was really socialistic the soul of England would swiftly rise in revolt.