METHODIST CHURCH IN FIJI.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 135, 7 June 1907, Page 5

METHODIST CHURCH IN FIJI.

SYDNEY, June 6. The Methodist Conference to-day further discussed the question of lay representation in Fiji. Mr Garland (New Zealand) maintained that lay representation would give tbe preponderance of power to the native vote.

Mr Robson (New South Wales) favoured the granting of lay representation, and warned the Conference that, jf they were not very careful t'.iey would lose the Fijian Church altogether.

The Rev. Mr Smale declared himself absolutely on the side of lay representation.

Dr. Brown said the only way in which they could save the Fiji Mission was to make the Church of Fiji the Church of the chiefs and people, not the Church of the missionaries. One of the greatest anxieties the Rev. Mr Smale had had in Fiji was the Free Church. Its influence was spreading, and it only wanted a chief of some importance to place himself at the bead of the discontented natives, and they would bave the Tongan experience repeated in Fiji. No greater slur could be cast on Fiji than to say that out of its people, among whom they had been labouring for 70 years, and from whom the Government took Civil servants, magistrates, and doctors, not a solitary layman in each circuit was fit to take his place in the Financial District Synod, and bave a voice in 1 dividing his own money. The talk of the preponderance of the native vote wa_ a bogey.

Dt. Brown's motion, "That the principle of lay representation be put in operation in the Fijian Synod of 1908," was carriea. with a few dissentient votes.