PROHIBITION OR REFORM?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 40, 15 August 1925, Page 6

PROHIBITION OR REFORM?

THE ANGLICAN POSITION.

TO THE EDITOR,

Sir, —Mr. Malton Murray, assistant sec-' rotary of the New Zealand Alliance, has not ventured to challenge the accuracy of any of tho facts set out in my previous letter regarding tho attitude of the Anglican Church to licensing reform; but he now endeavours to bolster up his rotten case by further misrepresentation. He based his contention that the Anglican Church favours prohibition as against reform on two things: (1) The resolution of General Synod in 1922; (2) an opinion adverse to Corporate Control, expressed by Archbishop Julius. In answer. to this I pointed out that Mr. Murray grossly misrepresented the position by concealing the •all-important fact that General Synod decisively rejected a straight-out motion in favour of Prohibition before carrying the resolution declaring it to be the duty of Christian people, unless they are prepared to vote for Prohibition, to find some other "drastic remedy." Mr. Murray's efforts to explain »way this clear declaration for reform as against Prohibition are positively ludicrous. He has'got himself into a hopeless tangle. He indulges in further misrepresentation when he asserts that I have tried "to beg the inconvenient matter of the synod's action this*year." The plain fact iB that synod took no action this year. It is true that Archbishop Julius expressed an opinion adverse to Corporate Control; but, as I stated in my previous letter, that was his personal opinion—no more. Mr. Murray's assertion that the Archbishop's remark "cut away the qualification attached to the 1922 resolution" and converted it into a declaration in favour of Prohibition is an amazing piece of stupidity. Anyone who knows anything about the procedure of our aynods will know how nonsensical it is to imagine that every opinion expressed by the president must be regarded as the opinion of the s.ynod unless a resolution dissenting from it is proposed and carried. Of course, no one can modify a resolution of synod except synod itself. The only reasonable interpretation of the fact that the synod of 1925 did not discuss the question is that it adhered to its former decision in favour of "3rastic reform." That decision still stands.

Before, writing any more nonsense on this matter Mr. Murray should consult some of his Anglican friends. It might save him from making himself Eiill more ridiculous. If he had consulted them it is not likely that he Would have made the insolent insinuation that Canpn James, the Rev. P. T. Williams, the Rev. Gordon Bell, and myself—the four original promoters of the Corporate Control scheme—have been falsely posing as "delegates of the Auckland Synod." There is not a particle of truth in this insinuation. Mr. Murray bases it on a remark by an unnamed writer in an unnamed paper. -Are insinuations of this kind a recognised part of Ms, Murray's controversial outfit? In my previous fetter I stated that Mr. Murray's, methods of controversy did no oredit to the Now Zealand Alliance; I must now say they are absolutely discreditable to the alliance.— I am, etc.,

NORMAN E. BURTON . (Member of the Auckland Diocesan

Synod). Auckland, 13th August