Tanganyika Wants To Be Non-Aligned

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30569, 12 October 1964, Page 1

Tanganyika Wants To Be Non-Aligned

Tanganyika still wished to remain a nonaligned country, although it was receiving further aid from China, the Bishop of Victoria Nyanza (the Rt. Rev. M. L. Wiggins) said in Christchurch yesterday.

Bishop Wiggins, who was born and educated in Christchurch, has been in Tanganyika for 19 years. He returned to Christchurch with his wife during the week-end on three months’ furlough. “In an effort to meet the tremendous task ahead of them, the young nations of Africa are trying to get help from anyone who is willing to assist” he said. “I know their leaders are greatly troubled when, after they have approached the East for help, the western press implies they are becoming communistic. “It must be remembered that this is only part of the search for resources to meet their urgent needs,” he said. Tanganyika was at present forging ahead with a comprehensive five-year plan of development and was fighting its three big ‘‘enemies” — poverty, ignorance and disease, Bishop Wiggins said.

A World Bank survey recently revealed that the average annual income a person was £2O. “One great object at present is to increase earnings, but to achieve this, the country will need a large in-' jection of investment from outside.

"This is one reason why Tanganyika and other African countries are seeking gifts and loans all round the world—providing of course, there are no strings attached,” he said. Bishop Wiggins said there was a strong and rapidly growing Christian church in Tanganyika. "There are at present five Anglican dioceses with the possibility of three more in the near future. “African church leadership is also increasing, with five African bishops. My own diocese was formed only last year and although it covers an area containing some two million people, we have only 27 clergy of whom four are missionaries,” he said. Missionaries were also engaged in the training of teachers and medical work. Six were from Canterbury with two others from the

South Island, said Bishop Wiggins. Bishop Wiggins was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School and after graduating from Canterbury Uni-

versity College, was a curate at St. Mary's, Merivale, under the present Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren). Bishop Wiggins was vicar of Oxford from 1942 to 1945, when he left for Tanganyika.