GREATER UNITY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 89, 25 January 1934, Page 6

GREATER UNITY

THE CHURCH IN GERMANY. ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP. QUESTION OF DISARMAMENT. I United Press Association —Copyright). (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, January 24. The Archbishop of Canterbury, presiding at the Upper House Convocation, referred to the difficulties of the situation between fhe German Church and the State. He said, “With the desire that fhe new-found unity or' the State shpuld be accompanied by greater unity in the Church, we cannot but sympathise, but we trust that unity in the Church will not be achieved at the cost of its spiritual freedom. / “\y e earnestly trust that both ■ the Catholic and the Reformed Churches in Germany may be left free to give their own unhindered witness of influence to the national life.”

Touching on the question of disarmament, he expressed! the deep anxiety with which the Bishops were watching the negotiations for a solution, without which there could be no recovery for the world from the economic issues which beset it.

“However strong and clear our ideals may be,” he said, “we must realise the realities of the difficulties of adjusting the natural claim of Germany for equality with the equally natural claim of France for security, but we earnestly hope that some preiiminary convention may be obtained which will clear the way within the near future for a wider and fuller convention on the basis not of a levellingup of armaments, but down, by common consent, to the level necessary (for internal safety and defence.”