MISSION PROPERTY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1927, Page 10

MISSION PROPERTY

.WORK- IN TARANAKI STREET

REV. FIELDEN TAYLOR'S

IDEAL

IS IT BEING BEALISED?

The "Evening Post" has received from a correspondent a long letter dealing with matto's connected with the m'ssion in Wellington under the direction of the-Rev. Pielden Taylor. As the correspondent raises some interesting and important issues, the letter, and a statement in reply, are published in full. The tetter is as follows:—

(To the Editor.) Sir, —It will be granted that it is no credit to the Capital City of a young and prosperous country to have already in its midst the beginnings of a slum area; but it is surely a sign of the growth of an altruistic spirit when the general public feel that they have some responsibility for this state of affairs, and show it by responding generously to an appeal for funds, to help carry on a work designed to benefit those suffering from many disabilities of poverty and misfortune. As a citizen who whole-heartedly believes that one of the chief problems of our day is to find out how to adapt the conditions of our national life so that it may give full opportunities for all to lead a life of reasonable comfort in satisfying surroundings—satisfactory, that is, for the development of a good class of citizen —I have for several years watched with interest the work of a man well known in Wellington, the Rev. Fielden Taylor. I do not need to give here even an outline of the high ideals Mr. Taylor presents as his contribution to his generation. The thousand or. so people who regularly attend the King's Theatre and St. Peter's Mission Hall Sunday services Jnlow ther well; the general public know and fully appreciate them also. He has, indeed, I believe, an ultra-provincial reputation and following. No other man in Wellington can command • such a constant public; and this public generously respond to his appeal for: funds to carry on his work, knowing that'these moneys are not for himself, or his personal aggrandisement, but for the relief of the most distressing of the many cases of distress that come before him.

Now, Sir, I have not a personal intimacy with Mr. Taylor, but I understand that those public moneys are bestowed on him without condition, and in the faith that such will jo used to help in the realisation of the vision he has formulated. I regularly hear him speak, both at his services and most of his witty, and apposite little "talks," and I have studied his mission reports. May I be permitted to quote a passage from the report of 1921 —two years after Mr. Taylor started his .work in Tarauaki street:—

In the heart of the city of Wellington lies a district'possessing distinct characteristics of j*s own. Its streets are sordid; its homes miserable and moan. It boasts quite a number of public houses, and as if to give a guarantee for ita respectability, it is bounded on the north and south by police stations; both they, and the public houses are kept fairly busy. . . . The standard of morals is not high. How could it be in such an environment? . . . You will see that the mission is now a live, big concern. You will, also catch a glimpse of the vision the missioner has, and keeps before his many holpers. All he requires to make that vision a reality is your assistance. Wo ask you to act, to fall into lino and give whatever' practical help you can to fliiii venture to plant the Kingdom of Cod in this difficult district. It is not merely a ■ local-work; it has now a national significance. Its influence is by.no means confined to To Aro flat; but it is every day spreading further afield in its attempt to bring back the wanderer to the Household of God.—(Sgd.), H. Watson, Archdeacon. Tho Missioner's report, of the same year, under the heading of "Property," has the following:— A great stride has been made in the acquisition of property. I now sit in a residence purchased so that the mission should own a missioner's residence, next door to an eight-roomed house destined to be a boys' hostel next door but two is the Boys' Club, to which an officer's hut fromFo therston Camp has just been added. Next door again is tho section on •which the Mission Hall stands, and also a cottage destined for the Girls' Club. We have now all the land wo need for futuro development and work: ■■..-... .

This report is dated "year ended 31st March,-1921.". I understand that since then the mission, i.e., the Rev. Fielden Taylor, has purchased an intermediate section, making of the mission property one compact block. Six years have passed since then, and each year has brought in its annual report of St. Peter's Mission a tale of steadily increasing support of Mr. Taylor's ideals and work. The Press of this city has given unsolicited to the work, and to the personality of its moving figure, a great deal of generous and compassionate notice and publicity. In two successive of those years a spectacular entertainment was held in the Town Hall, to Which an army of voluntary and enthusiastic workers gave devoted service. The first of these fairs, if I remember rightly, was advertised as being run to raise money to commence the building of a boys' hostel, and great disappointment was expressed when the ' money was otherwise allocated by the governing body of the mission. The scheme of founding a boys' hostel is, I gather from the public uttoranees and from the annual reports of the missioner, the darling of, his vision, and we may say, rightly so—since to take the still, to some extent, plastic boy of fourteen or so from a bad or difficult environment, and give him help and a steady guiding hand for two or three of his most difficult and crucial years, is sound psychology and good citizenship. The idea has evidently the full approval of the public, and its largo financial support, yet there seems now no talk on the part of tho governing body of the mission of any further development of this scheme. It should be borne in mind that the bulk of the money raised from the first years of Mr. Taylor's work and the money raised by the first Eastern fair, was devoted to the securing and paying off of the debt on tho block of land and buildings. This was evidently^—vide reports—purchased with the full consent and approval of the trustees, for a specific purpose; the old buildings were to bo scrapped,' and a new and well-equip-ped block of buildings erected to serve all mission activities under one roof.

At the end of 1925 the trustees' report shows that all debts on the mission property were paid, and the block of land had become an entirely unencumbered freehold. The large sum of money raised by the second fair —- the Egyptian Fair (I have not tho figures at the moment) was given to one Wellington Anglican Home, but the whole of that money was raised by tho power of Mr. Taylor's mana, aided by his arniy of voluntary workers. Now, for the 1927 programme, as outlined by the chairman at the mission annual meeting on Thursday, sth May last, a report of which appears in the "Evening Post": One statement in that report is "the value of the land and buildings remained

as last near, namely £9339 lls Id. It is now proposed—if sufficient money is raised by the Spanish Market now in progress at the Town Hall —to start on an addition to the present Mission Hall. This two-storied building comprising hall and club rooms, store-rooms, kitchen, etc., is to be erected on the back portion of a section whose frontage to Taranaki street is at present occupied by two tumble-down buildings used as club rooms these latter are to remain, to quote the chairman, "until the City Coun compels us to pull them down." That the trustees should allow a new building to be undertaken at all seems a big forward step, but consider: This body of men, who in 1921, by the voice of their chairman quoted already here, outlined the work of St. Peter's Mission, as "not a local work, but one of national significance," and possessing new property of nearly £.10,000 in value, secured to them by the labour and "mana" of one man, presents to us an aim now apparently stripped of its large aspirations, since on a small back portion of its painfully acquired fine block of land it proposes to place a building so curtailed in scope. And what, one may ask, do the mission trustees intend to do with the frontage of the section oh the back portion of which the new building is to be placed? A further extension of, the proposed new building, you will say. Not so! The chairman, Mr. Watson, who was also chairman in 1921, clearly stated that in his opinion—in 1927 the site was quite unsuitable for the mission work; his reasons being that the whole district would shortly become ;i congested area of warehouses and factories, entirely non-residential, and a building such as was first proposed would become a white elephant in consequence. But surely this aspect of the position was as evident in 1921, and did not require six years' thinking over. In 1921 Mr. Watson thought the mission work—on Te Aro flat—"a work of more than local value and of national significance.''

What do the mission trustees intend to do with the rest of the land? They did not tell us at the annual meeting, and not being in their confidence, I cannot answer that question. But, speaking as a mere man in the street, I may say it is freely rumoured that they intend ultimately to sell both the frontage of the section on which the ■new hall, if built, will stand, and. also the rest of the property, except tho actual mission hall and clubrooms. If so all that will bo left to mark Mr. Taylor's strenuous labours on behal^ of it. Peter's Mission, in say, ten years' time, will be a small building down a grimy alleyway, wedged in behind a many storied block of offices or factory buildings. If this is their idea of carrying out a "work of more than local value, and of national significance," .well, I should not like to have to search for someone who would agree with them. If they consented to Mr. Taylor's labours being undertaken for the satisfaction, as business men, of buying up a block of land, merely to hold it for a ris • in tho community created value, and sell again, then they reduce themselves and their leader to tho level of an ordinary e-nibination of land speculators, except that, of course, one must express the fullest confidence that these gentlemen would apply the funds so increased to some work of church or public benefit, but not necessarily to Mr. Taylor's work. And the work of Canon Melden Taylor is first and last the object for which the money was originally given, and for which tho money ,is still being given, as you will note from tho.treasurer's report of 1927. "The income for the year exceeded that of the previous year by £184 16s 4d." It seems that it is Mr. Taylor's misfortune to give his services to a body which is a century or so behind tho times, and which, in spite of the most clearly expressed mandate of the people—among its many anarchonisms— clings to a stupid faith in the "sacred right of veto."—l am, etc.,

ONLOOKER.