Rationing Cut Urged

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 April 1946, Page 4

Rationing Cut Urged

More Food for Britain Views of Church Leaders “We desire to bring to the notice of all citizens the united effort which the churches are making to press the urgency of such an extension of rationing as will enable New 1 Zealand to send additional supplies of food, to Britain,” says a statement issued last evening by New Zealand Church leaders. “We cordially support the effort which the Government is making for a voluntary effort but we believe that nothing less than, furthei’ rationing will achieve the result which is desired. It is our hope that the efforts now being made by the churches and others in that direction will assure the Government that the country would be behind them if they instituted a mandatory and inclusive instead of a voluntary and fragmentary system. “We are not unmindful that such an extension of rationing will bear hardly on some of our people. But we hope that when such temporary hardship is compared with the prolonged and exhausting restrictions from which the people in Britain are suffering, we shall all be willing to make the effort for a limited period of time. “During the war years we have enjoyed comparative abundance while the people in the Homeland have with dogged endurance endured a diet whose monotony and limitations must have drawn heavily on their mental and physical reserves of strength. Now that peace has come, instead of enjoying some relaxation they face a further period of severe rationing. Anything we can do will not only help to relieve their physical necessities. It will also assure them that we are anxious to share in their privations and will cheer and encourage them in facing up to the difficult months ahead.” The statement bears the following signatures:—

Campbell, Archbishop of New Zealand; Thomas O’Shea, Archbishop of Wellington; J. W. McKenzie, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand; W. T. Blight, President of the Methodist Conference of New Zealand; L. J. Boulton Smith, President of the Baptist Union of New Zealand; R. T. Wright, President of the Associated Churches of Christ in New Zealand; H. H. Miller, Chairman of the Congregational Union of New Zealand; C. Walls, Chief secretary of the Salvation Army in New Zealand, on behalf of Commissioner Evan Smith; Montague Goldsbury, Clerk to the New Zealand General meeting of the Society of Friends. LACK OF STRONG MORAL LEADERSHIP HOLDING OF STATE BANQUETS QUESTIONED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 22. Until stronger moral leadership was forthcoming from the State and civic authorities there would never be a proper response, declared the vicar of St. Barnabas’ Church, Roseneath (the Rev. E. M. McLevie) in Wellington last night, when explaining his reasons for declining to support the In-ter-Church Council’s appeal to the Government to introduce more stringent food rationing to aid Britain. Mr. McLevie said he had hoped for some time that the archbishops, the bishops, or other church leaders would take a strong stand against certain actions by those who governed the community. They had not done so. It might seem out of place in St. Barnabas, but having waited so long he felt it was right that a still small voice should raise the question of moral leadership. The Government had called for voluntary rationing, while some Church leaders and others were now making a move for further compulsory rationing. Pertinent Questions. In church that day the congregation was to have received a document from which they were, asked to tear off and post to the Prime Minister an appeal to .that end. However, said Mr. McLevie, he had written to the bishop asking for exemption from leading his people in such an action at present. If the need for food was so great certain facts should be faced.

“Is it all right for it to be lying in sheds and on wharves? Is it all right for the State to have a succession of banquets for our itinerant visitors?” he said. There had been welcomes for the consuls of Russia and France, and for visiting cricketers, for Sir William Dobbie, General Carpenter, and Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten. There had been scores of them. There had been banquets and parties galore for Sir Cyril and Lady Newall. “I am not opposed to any of these good folks,” said Mr. McLevie. “I love them all, but must all these welcomes and farewells be surrounded by feasting?

“Were any rationed goods, any of tire fats and other food needed by Britain consumed at such parties and banquets? Was food confined to biscuits, as it is now at church affairs? Did people who attended hand out ration tickets, or did they save them and go home with advantage over others?” he asked.

He was not doubting the need, or condemning any of the good folks he had mentioned, but any rationing should be evenly distributed.

He was amazed at the weakness of some State and civil authorities. They had a responsibility not to do as they pleased and hold parties for themselves while they made others do with rationing, but to set an example of fairness and justice. “We want nbt the leadership of talking, but the leadership of example,” said Mr. McLevie. “Great Moral Issue”

I “We of this Dominion are being I challenged by a great moral issue,” said the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland), who is also chairman of the Inter-Church Council for Public Affairs, preaching at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral yesterday. “Are we as a community to give only half an ear to the cry of famine and privation in one of the most disastrous years of the world’s history, and leave it to decent individuals to do something which, in sober truth, demands an act of corporate self-sacrifice?” he asked. “It is idle and cowardly to ask what the United States or any other nation is doing or not doing. We are one of the family of the British. Common-

wealth of Nations. If one member suffers, all other members suffer with it or ought to. We stood as a community, not as a haphazard bag of individuals behind Great Britain in the crisis of war. We must stand behind her as a community, not as a haphazard bag of individuals in this new, unexpected, and terrifying crisis of food. That is why the church, in trying to strengthen the hand of the Government to take the only step—further mandatory rationing—which can enable the necessary sacrifice to be spread equitably over the whole community, is proving itself to be true to its divine origin.”