NOT PACIFIST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 10

NOT PACIFIST.

PRESBYTERIANISM.

MODERATOR'S STATEMENT

REPLY TO HON. A. D. McLEOD,

Opportunity was taken of the presence in Auckland of the Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Rev. Dr. Dickie, principal of the Theological College in Duncdin, to seek his opinion on the remarks made in the House of Representatives yesterday by the Hon. A. D. -McLeod.

Mr. McLeod said: "If ever I felt sorry I was a Prebyterian it was when I read the letter to the Prime Minister from clergymen protesting against war. Three Presbyterian ministers signed the letter, but I ani suro they did not represent the opinion of 1 per cent of the Presbyterians of this Dominion. I have never yet imagined that Presbyterians would get down to the position when they were not prepared to light in de-fence of their women and their young. It makes my blood boil to read the letter. When I hear Presbyterian ministers, or socalled ministers, saying they will not light I ain almost ashamed to be a Presbyterian."

Dr. Dickie said that as far as he remembered the letter was signed by only two Presbyterians, the Rev. Dr. Gibb, of Wellington, who had been retired for some years, and Mr. Lex Miller, travelling secretary of the Student Christian Movement. Dr. Gibb had been a. convinced pacifist for the last eight or ten years, and the other young man had objected to military training during his course. "I think not more than two or three per cent of Presbyterians are pacifists," he said. "I myself am certainly not a pacifist, and I have three boys, who are at the university, who arc not pacifists either. There % is a small, but very active, pacifist group, but they are not more numerous or more active than similar groups among other bodies." Conflicting -Evils. The Presbyterian Church, he said, believed that sometimes war was the least of a number of conflicting evils. When asked who in such a case should decide whether a war was a righteous one from that point of view, Dr. Dickie said it was not a question which could be gone into without notice during a telephone talk. "It would depend on circumstances," he said, "but our official policy is to support the League of Nations and the League of Nations Union." A proposal had been brought down in the assembly that Presbyterians should refuse to go to -war unless all the League of Nations precautions had been complied with. That proposal was now before the presbyteries. Some of them had thrown it out altogether, and some of them had supported it by a majority.

The Rev. W. Bower Black, with whom Dr. Dickie was staying, said the signatories did not represent the official opinion of the Presbyterian Church, and from that point Mr. McLcod's strictures were not justified. That opinion had been stated officially many times. It was in full sympathy with the League of Nations. The. pacifists were a very small group.

Asked whether the Church would support war to enforce a League of Nations decision, Mr. Bower Black said: "I should imagine so, but we have a great horror of war and would do our utmost to prevent' it. But if war should come I should think that the great majority of Presbyterians would be found loyal 1 citizens." Ex-Moderator's View. Tho Rev. J. A. Thomson, former Moderator of tho Auckland Presbytery, said that the Church stood by the principles of the League, which included sanctions. "I think," ho said, "there is a growing feeling among Presbyterian ministers, as among others, that the Church must lead the community towards world peace." A pronouncement was made at tho last assembly that the Church must lead the community to change the old self-seeking nationalism into a new and generous spirited nationalism, proud to take its place for service in the family of nations. At the 1928 assembly a manifesto had been parsed in which the Church declared emphatically for the League and its principles. That attitude had been reaffirmed at practically every assembly since then, and last year the assembly had commended the League of Nations Union and expressed the hope that Church members would support it.