REPLY TO CITY COUNCILLORS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22936, 5 February 1940, Page 9

REPLY TO CITY COUNCILLORS

♦ PACIFISTS’ ANSWER TO CHARGES MEETING IN TRADES HALL A denial of some of the statements made at the City Council meeting last Monday, at which it was decided not to permit the continuance of pacifist street meetings, was made by some of the speakers at a meeting of the Combined Pacifist Societies in the Trades Hall. The Rev. F. N. Taylor presided, about .50 attending. “I want to correct one misapprehension existing in the minds of many people, including city councillors, that it makes no difference to us whether we hold our meetings in the open air or in a hall,” said Mr Taylor. “That is not so. . . . We depend on getting ourselves heard by the casual passerby. The Labour Party in New Zealand has made its almost miraculous advance by exactly similar means. Mr Taylor objected, further, to the remarks that clergymen who spoke at pacifist meetings should have some sense of responsibility and respect for other people’s feelings. “I repudiate the remark as an impertinence on the part of the eminent gentleman who said it,” declared Mr Taylor. He also objected to the statement that clergymen had their own pulpits from which to air their views, contending that, on the contrary, clergymen aired their private views elsewhere, as a matter of decency. In reply to the assertion that If clergymen did not have the support of their congregation, they had' no right to speak at a public meeting, Mr Taylor said that the perpetrator of that statement was a very rapid speaker, and had perhaps been speaking more rapidly than he could think. There had been no . settled decision by the Church as to'what its official attitude to the war should be. Mr Taylor denied the charge that pacifists had woken up only when war broke out; but added that in any case the right time to bring out the fireengine was when the fire had started. “We believe not only that war is cruel, horrible, and futile, but that it is wrong,” said Mr Taylor. “Therefore we renounce it. and resolve never to take part in it or sanction it again.” Among other speakers were Miss Ockenden, the .Rev. N. R. Wood, and Mr N. M. Bell.