April 20.
'THE National Council of Free Churches held its annual meeting in Leeds on March 8, and had some features of peculiar interest. The President's chair at these annual meetings has been held by men whose names were household words amongst Free Churchmen in England but, on this occasion, for the first time, the chair was filled by a woman, George Cadbury, 0.3.., is an outstanding personality in the religious life of England. Her husband was, for she is a widow, Mr. George Cadbury of Birmingham, He was a wireless worker in every good cause and a generous philanthropist. He built five colleges and schools of sound Jearning, founded the Garden City of Bourneville and labour: ed sedulously to solve the problem of unemployment, Mr. Cadbury disliked publicity and was shy'of taking a position of prominence and the Council honoured his memory when it persuaded Mrs, Cadbury to preside at this meeting, The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress gave a civic reception to the delegates and thus lent weight and dignity to the deliberations of what was in itself notable gathering. The Prime Minister of Grvat Britain stole time from his arduous duties in the House of Commons to address the Council and his. strain! forward talk and honest facing of the problems that confront legislators and social workers won high praise from all who heard him, Mr, Baldwin has the reputation of being a train ed business man, but he showed, in his address, that he was whit behind the most ardent idealist in demanding that the conditions under which great numbers of our fellow-countrymen live and labour should be changed for the better. No man is more conscious of the burdens which the country is arrying and must continue to arry until those who are child-get on with the work of reconstruction or get out of the way and lo; better men handle the problem. It is a curious fact—or, it would be a curious fact, if we were ignorant of the vagaries of human nature—that the persons who appear to be least interested in the reform of slum conditions are the people who live in the slums. Habit has so inured "them to the conditions under which they exist that they are.no longer inconvenienejed by the lack of fresh air and sunshine, But nature is not mocked. If men will disobey. her laws she exacts inevitable retribution. The young and the Jaged are swept out of existence by deadly disease engendered by ithe fe: id atmosphere of those overcrowded streets and the survivors carry about with them the germs of tuberculosis, the white man's plague. It' will Joost a vast sum of money to rebuild the legacy of shoddy houses left to us by the jerry-builders of bygone days, but it will cost vastly more to allow things to go on as they did in the past.
The time has come when going on is no longer possible and we must create the conditions under which a healthy and happy people may be reared or consent to perish from the face of the earth as did the Empires of bygone days. For germs are the most democratic of living organisms. They do not hes-irate to come between the wind and our nobility. That cough that racks our breathing apparatus was carried on the wings of the wind from the Jungs of some sick wastrel in a sordid hut into which no money would tempt us to enter. But. the disease germ finds its [way not only into our sheltered homes but into the innermost recesses of our bodies. Fortunately for our peace of mind the germs of disease are invisible, but they are none the less veal and their origin is none the lasa loathsome on that count. Attack is the best de. fence against this enemy. We must purify the homles of the Poor and unfortunate if we desire to be safe in our own. ren now shall be old and grey-headed, but he insists that we hall not postpone reforms that are long overdue. He courageously faces all the grim facts without blinking. Our depressed trade; the fierce competition of those nations whose workers toil longer for less wages than men ix Britain and even the obstinate opposition of those who believe that the best way to bulla up a better England is to destroy the industrial system that is slowly recovering from the devastating effects of war, He admits the difficulties but courageously asserts that they can and must be solved.
The President proclaimed that the air of the Council was "to apply the Christian Gospel to department of human Church Councils are usually supposed to concern themselves with dry-as-dust. theological formulae and ecclesiastical questions which to the average man are as the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum, Be that as it may, this Council concerned itsd?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.