SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 193, 13 February 1912, Page 7

SOCIAL JUSTICE.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY.

"Only those who are wilfuly blind .would- declare that present-day social conditions are satisfactory," declared the Hon. Geo. Fowlds in an address before the Congregational Conference at Palmerston last week.

Be asked: Did the conditions in this country approximate to social justice? He believed they did not, and it was the duty of Christian people to deal with them. He admitted the recent frank utterances ol certain -Anglican prelates. Something more than frank utterances of generalities was required, however. He quoted the Bishop of London's pronouncement in favor of equality of opportunity for as many as possible. It was dangerous for men to discriminate as to who should opportunities and who should not, but the Bishop of London expressed the sentiment that every boy and girl should have equality of access to education. Evil social conditions were pretty generally admitted, A good many people believed that the poverty of the poor was due to their own fault or to the inscrutability of. Providence. To his mind, the former idea was arrogance, while the latter was blasphemy. So long as the land was monopolised by a small section, so long would poverty exist. The earth was the family ■table of the Heavenly Father, to which everyone of His children should have access. If He rained down manna and raiment from the skies it would not benefit the people unless he sent down with it a shower of common-sense to show men the injustice of land' "monopolisation. Between 1891 and 1911 the value 1 of unimproved land in the hands "of private owners increased by £126,000,000. The bulk of this went into the pockets of *O,OOO or less people. In face of this prodigious robbery of the workers the Christian churches could not look on unconcerned for long. He urged Congr.egatjonalists to help to secure libedty and justice in the social sphere. .The Bible said, "First that which is. spiritual," The workers rightly believed that discontent with unrighteous conditions was not wrong. The State was continually creating enormouß values which ought to return to the coffers of the State, but which the law, allowed to be confiscated by private individuals. They should make it their business to see that the rank injustice of the present conditions was tolerated no longer. ,