The Common Market
As negotiations for the entry of Great Britain to the Common Market are expected to begin soon, we would urge our readers to make this serious question a matter of earnest prayer to the Lord that He would intervene, if that is His will, and prevent such an outcome. Already, through the backsliding of our own nation, the Protestant constitution of our country has been put in jeopardy but how much more so if we were brought into an economic, political or federal union with the predominantly Roman Catholic countries of Europe. The fact that the first attempt to enter the Common Market failed so unexpectedly should be encouragement to us to plead with the Lord that He would again intervene on our behalf.
Violence on Television
Earlier in the year both Mr Callaghan, the Home Secretary, and Mr Stonehouse, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, expressed concern about the amount of violence on television and its effect on those who saw it. The B.B.C., through Mr Kenneth Lamb, its Director of Public Affairs, have now announced that it is to carry out a survey to try to establish how people are affected by the violence which they see in television programmes. As this survey is to take from 12 to 18 months to complete, it seems to us a wholly inadequate way of dealing with such an urgent problem. If the B.B.C. itself showed a greater sense of responsibility in the programmes which it screened, there would be no need of this survey and much of the violence and other objectionable matter now shown, would automatically disappear from the screen.
Road Deaths
The number of deaths on the roads in 1969 was 7,383, nearly 600 more than in 1968. We cannot but deplore this colossal slaughter on the roads year by year. It is solemn to think of so many souls ushered into eternity, many of them suddenly and unprepared. These figures ought to be, on the one hand, a salutary warning to drivers of the great need to exercise the utmost care on the roads and, on the other hand, a warning to all of the need of being prepared for the great eternity when we may be ushered into it so suddenly.