PROPOSED MAORI DIOCESE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 196, 20 August 1925, Page 12

PROPOSED MAORI DIOCESE.

■ • WITH DIOCESAN BISHOP. At the last General Synod, which ssj in Dunedin in February, a commission was appointed in inquire into the work among the Maoris, and to make any recommendations to the Standing Committee of the Synod that might' lead to its better organisation. After a conference at Rotorua in June, at which the leaders in the work, both pakeha and Maoris were present, the commission drew up its report, which it presented to the Standing Committee which sat in Wellington last week. The Standing Committee accepted the main findings of the commission and appointed a commission, consisting of the archbishop, tho Bishops of Wellington and Waiapu, Archdeacons Williams, Simkin and Hawkins, the Hon. A. T. Ngata, and Mr. C. J. Tunks, to draw up legislation for presentation to a special session of the General Synod. The order of reference is that the commission is to prepare legislation that shall be unified. In the past the work throughout New Zealand has been carried on as a separate mission in each diocese, and thus there has been no common policy and no concerted action in connection with the Church of the province as a whole. The method by which the work in both the North and South Islands, including Stewart and Chatham Islands, is to be brought about is by forming a diocese of the Maoris, with a bishop, who shall be a diocesan bishop and not an assistant, at its head. The necessary legislation to give effect to this is being prepared, and a full meeting of the commission will sit in Auckland on September 2. It will be for the commission to suggest to the archbishop when the General Synod should meet, this, of course, depending upon when the legislation is ready for presentation to tho Synod.