MUST HAVE BACKING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 243, 15 October 1931, Page 9

MUST HAVE BACKING.

DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE.

ARCHBISHOP'S APPEAL. DUTY OF CHURCH PEOPLE.

A strong plea for support for the objects and ideals of the International Disarmament Conference to be- held in Geneva next February was made by Archbishop Averill this morning at St. Mary's, Parnell, in his presidential address to the Anglican Synod. It must, he 6aid, foe evident to the most. superficial thinker that the success or failure the conference was fraught with tremendous consequences to the peace jnd stability of the world,- and therefore it behoved all Christian people to P ra 7 earnestly that the representatives the-nations might both perceive and now what things they ought to do, and have a right judgment in all their ecisions. It was quite obvious that it by international mutual agreement that the nations or any of them ould dare to commence or continue the reduction of armaments.

It would be absolutely unfair to con- | re P reseil tatives of the nations 1 the conference should prove abortive ~~ w aich God forbid!—if those repreen atives had received no strong and Powerful moral backing by the rank and s e ,°, nations whom they repre- ® e( >. It was one of the most seri--18 and fundamental questions before •'?. Wor ld to-day, and Avas closely and fflately connected with the economic j .Austria! depression which, like a J, °loud, had descended upon the j, 1 • Archbishop Averill said he rioi!f Gorman Angell was quite oDt when he said, "The real cost of t anie 'it is not the annual expending ° n . s^Ps an d guns. It is in the erna ti°nal unrest, fears, barriers, w O9 which armament helps to perwfovi* t which is fatal to the recha J lshmenfc prosperity. If that old „ 0 „° lc system which armament implies Br't -on ' len econom ic position of 1 ain will become progressively worse. j, an onl y end by becoming impossible." t], p ) vas surely.'the bounden duty of a lurc 'h to supjVdrt in every way sucli ar,(l'T" emen t as or disarmament, 0 en courage, draw out and develop

the yearning spirit which lay behind it and which was supplying its real dynamic. , Even partial disarmament, so long" as it was. really international, would not only contribute to the lightening of the world's financial burden, but also of the world's spiritual burden. ,The Archbishop said he would be glad if the Synod saw its way to pass a sympathetic resolution in connection with the Disarmament Conference.