Methodist Synod Urges Halt To Nuclear Tests

Press, Volume C, Issue 29623, 20 September 1961, Page 11

Methodist Synod Urges Halt To Nuclear Tests

The Prime Minister (M Holyoake) is asked to drax the attention ot Cabinet t the concern of many person about the resumption o nuclear testing, in a recom

mendation which was unanimously carried at a meeting of the standing committee of the synod of the North Canterbury Methodist District in Christchurch last evening. About 20 persons attended. Both Mr Holyoake and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Nash) are also asked to use their influence in the United Nations to ask countries to return to ways of negotiation. The recommendations were presented to the standing committee by the chairman of the synod’s public questions sub-committee (the Rev. J. D. Grocott). The recommendations read: 1 “We respectfully ask the

[r Prime Minister to draw the w attention of his cabinet to ;o the profound concern and is deepening anxiety by con>f siderable numbers of people i- in this country at the resump-

tion of nuclear testing, and the common fear that, once testing becomes accepted, the danger of nuclear war breaking out becomes a tragic probability. It is believed that nuclear war would be a colossal disaster, worse than anything that the world has ever seen. “We respectfully ask the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to exercise all the influence it is possible in the councils of the United Nations to urge countries to return to ways of negotiation and to stress that there is no condition more tragically full of the possibilities of wholesale disaster than the continuation of testing.”