SYDNEY PROTEST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 81, 17 March 1934, Page 2

SYDNEY PROTEST

Show on Good Friday LAYMEN’S STRONG STAND As surely as the Easter season comes round here, a protest is presented to the State Government against holding the Royal Agricultural Show on Good Friday, says a Sydney correspondent. While the late Archbishop Wright was alive, he never failed to put in a protest on behalf of the churches against what they regard as a “desecration of this sacred season.” Long before when Sir Francis Sutton was president of the R.A.S., the protest had become a “hardy annual.” For Sir Francis was also chairman of the Bathurst Anglican Synod, and it was felt that his dual office placed him in an anomalous and difficult position. But Sir Francis took what he regarded as a common sense view of the question and always refused to allow the objectors to make use of him or his position in the Anglican Church as a lever against the R.A.S. This year, however, the objectors developed a novel and unexpected line of attack. They got up a “layman’s protest,” secured several thousand signatures, and launched it suddenly at the Cabinet just before the Premier’s return from his summer holiday. Among other things, the petition sets forth that there is in this country a strong feeling that the holding of the show on Good Friday constitutes “a grave misuse of this solemn day.” Taken rather aback by this sudden onslaught. Ministers could only fall back upon the argument by which the annual protest has often been met before—that as the R.A.S. has made all its arrangements no interference is possible this year. | But Mr. Stevens is so far impressed I that he has arranged for a conference I between Ministers and representatives ■ of the R.A.S.: and the petitioners are ; io hear more of the matter later on.