METHODIST CONFERENCE.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 283, 5 June 1907, Page 3

METHODIST CONFERENCE.

[BT UiCUTRIG TKLKGEAPH— COPXBIGHT.j [PUt PRESS ASSOCIATION.] • Sydney, June 4. At the Methodist Conference Dr. Brown moved the adoption of the report of the Fiji Commission on the constitution of Fiji district. The Conference agreed that the pastoral session shall consist of all European ministers, and preachers on trial, and one native' minister from each circuit. A lengthy debate took place on the question of composition of the. financial committee and it was finally resolved that it should consist of four superintendent missionaries, two native minsiters, and two native lay members of the Church. The Rev. Skde said that though he had been away from Fiji for five years he had not allowed his ledge to the place to lapse, with the result that he had found it to advantage to modify his- views. He stood in the Conference not to oppese lay representation but to support it. It»was a little hard to go back on his previous standpoint, but he was seeking to dp his best for * Fi}i. They were not forcing anything upon Fiji for the question had been before the group since 1901 and the people there Had time to consider it. Lay representation had become a question of importance to Fijians who wanted it and unless they got it there would be a position of danger created. (Received June 5, 10.24 a.m.) Sydney, Wednesday. At the Methodist Conference, several speakers raised objections to the granting of the Fijians of Lay representation. Mr Slade said that in Fiji the young missionaries were thought to be standing between the Conference and the people. That impression could not be allowed to continue 1 . In Fiji there was a. genius for intrigue and Ministers might have all round an element of discontent without knowing it. The young men known there, with all honour for their sincerity, did not understand the* people amongst whom they laboured.