NEW BREWERY.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19769, 6 November 1929, Page 8

NEW BREWERY.

WOMEN'S DEMONSTRATION' REMARKABLE SCENES AT OTAHUHU. [THE FBESS Special S»rrice ] A I'CKLANP, >'■ '• With heads held high, shining eyes, an •; r strong resolution and purvo*e. over eighty women marched from the Church at Otahuhu this morning to invoke I'ivino intercession against the opening of the new mata Brewery. It was a remarkable march and demonstration, without precedent in Auckland. Before the procession started over one hundred 'women with a sprinkling of men iu support assembled at the Otahuhu Baptist Church to offer prayer for the success of the mission.

"Let it be understood we have no quarrel with the owner of the brewery and have never met that gentleman,'' •laid the R«v. T. H. Eceersall. "I desire here and now to express my best wishes for his well being. He may be a generous, genial, and good moral person in manv way.% but he has a hell of a job.'' After prayer the women formed into a procession outside the church and moved off. The leader was Mrs Harrison Lee Cowie, president of the W.f'.T.U., who carried a blue flag decorated with a red cross in one corner. AH her followers wore the blue ribbon of temperance and the emblematic white badge of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. They marched in single tile. As they passed Otahuhu School many children gathered to view the strange scene. One small boy embraced the opportunity to test some of the fireworks which he had been saving up tV-r his Guy Fawkes tire in the evening.

Crowds gathered on the footwalks to see the procession go by and there were remarks, both ribald and sympathetic. Workmen on one building cheered loudly. It was difficult to say which side they were supporting. There were all sorts of conflicting remarks as the crowd in the main street caught glimpses of the banners which waved proudly in the wind. "Save the child and you save the nation," "Liquor makes unhappy homes, vote it out," and "For God, home, and humanity - ' read the flags. At the Otahuhu monument the procession broke up and went the rest of the way to the brewery in buses and motor-cars.

Outside the brewery quite a crowd had gathered, with policemen keeping a watchful eye in case there was disorder. It was '.just the reverse. There was a blend of soprano and contralto voices, with occasional tenors a?id baritones, to harmonise in the hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past." It was sung with intense feeling. Then Mrs Cowie called for Divine intervention. Amid the rumble of the brewery machinery and the occasional rattle of bottles, Mrs Cowie pleaded to God that the brewery should be converted into a flour mill, a milk factorv, or even a church."

In a big semi-circle the women knelt in the dust of the roadway in fervent prayer. Among them were Mrs W. B. Farrard, 79 years old, president of the Auckland Anti-Gambling Society, representatives of the Independent Order of Rechabites, and other leaders of the Temperance movement. The proceedings were very reverent. At the conclusion of the prayers the brewery was still in full swing with nmoke drifting from the chimney and the odour which appears to be inseparable from places where beef is made floating afar. There were sad eyes and wistful faces when the women turnfed away from the goal of their pilgrimage.