METHODIST CONFERENCE

Evening Star, Issue 25422, 1 March 1945, Page 10

METHODIST CONFERENCE

CONTROL OF LIQUOR TRUST SUPERVISION ADVOCATED The report of the Public Questions Committee of the Methodist Church was referred to the Dominion conference at the session yesterday afternoon, the majority of the business discussed dealing with the liquor traffic. STRAIGHT-OUT VOTE URGED. The intei'chureh conference, which was held at Lower Hutt in August,* 1944, unanimously decided to recommend to the Government that the State purchase and control issue be eliminated from the ballot paper, substituting some form of trust or corporate control; that the electors be given the opportunity of a straight-out vote between National Continuance and National Prohibition, while at the same time deciding whether, in the event of Continuance being carried, liquor sales should be under corporate or trust control or under private ownership. It was also decided that by trust or corporate control was meant the manufacture, importation, and sale of intoxi- . eating liquor under the management of a public utility corporation; that such a corporation should be intermediate between State and private control; .and that a liquor control board or similar authority should be set up with power to act as a co-ordinating body in all licensing matters with a Dominion-wide reference. Other matters on which there was general agreement at the conference related to charters, licenses, alcoholic content, advertising, standard prices and measures, inspectors, food and nonintoxicants, hours, sale by breweries, drinking habits, tied houses, women police, liquor and Maoris, and educa- • tion. The Public Questions Committee of the Methodist Church endorsed all the points agreed to at the conference except that dealing with bare, the decision of the conference in this -matter beinc: " That liquor bars should be open°to the street and that the windows should be of.clear glass. That there should be only one liquor bar m a hotel, and the bar should remain on the ground floor." BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. The following resolution on the teaching of the Bible in schools, presented by* the Public Questions Committee, was adopted:—" That conference reaffirms its support of the work and policy of the Bible in Schools' League. The following were appointed to represent the conference on the Dominion Council of the Bible in Schools League: —Revs. W. A. Burley, M.A., A. K. Petch (Wellington), M.A., Rugby Pratt (Cbristchurch), and the Chairman of the North Canterbury district. Conference recorded its appreciation of the successful work of the Rev. E. 0. Blamires as organising secretary of the league. _ . The annual report of the Bible in Schools League mentioned that whereas 200 New Zealand public primary schools made provision for some religious activity in 1929, this total was 1.300 in 1942—an increase of 650 per cent. The Press generally in the Dominion was definitely more in sympathy than in the past, and education boards' had all approved of provision for corporate worship and religious teaching, and eight of the nine had supported the teaching of Christian principles in the school curriculum.

The following resolution bv the Rev. Dr D. O. Williams (Christchurch) was adopted: " That conference requests the Bible in Schools' League, in collaboration with the Council of Christian Churches, to explore ways and means, whereby the Christian principles upon which our democratic ways of life are based may be expounded to the children in the course of their ordinary studies." The following ministers became supernumeraries', and tributes were paid to them and their work:—The Revs. Clarence Eaton, Thomas Coatsworth, Ernest D. Patchett, Basil Metson. William Walker, Charles M. Roberts. Moses Ayrton, and Green Hall (home missionary) .