BISHOP OF KOBE IN AUSTRALIA: SOME OBJECTIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1950, Page 3

BISHOP OF KOBE IN AUSTRALIA: SOME OBJECTIONS

MELBOURNE, June 12.—Protests from local churchmen have persuaded Dr M. C. James, Bishop of St Arnaud, in north-western Victoria, to cancel an invitation to the Japanese Bishop of Kobe (Dr Michael Yashiro) to preach in his cathedral. Bishop Yashiro will preach instead at the church of a clergyman who was a prisoner of war in Japan. The clergyman is the Rev. F. G. Miadin, who was an artillery officer with the Bth Australian. Division when Singapore fell, and who spent three years as a prisoner at Changi, Sandakan, and Kuching. J “There are a lot of things that should be. forgotten,” said Mr Madin. “Bishop Yashiro’s visit is part of a mission of healing that must go on between the two countries.” An angry Australian former prisoner’ of war ..tried to attack Bishop Yashiro on Saturday as he walked round King’s Hall, Parliament House, in. Canberra, with local clergymen. The man. was restrained by other former prisoners of war. He muttered later: “The Japs killed 500 of my. mates. I know it would have been wrong, to, attack him, but something came over me. He should not have been allowed to come here.”