Radical Change Toward Dependant Peoples

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 263, 5 November 1943, Page 5

Radical Change Toward Dependant Peoples

ISLAND BISHOP’S APPEAL (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Nov. 4. A plea for a revision in the attitude of the British public toward dependant peoples was made bv the Bishop of Melanesia (ht. Hev. H. W. Baddeley) in speaking at the opening service of the Anglican General Synod in Bt. Mary’B Cathedral to-night. Acknowledging that New Zealand w’ould have her special post-war problems, Bishop Baddeley said that problems would also arise from those of us who are primarily concerned with some other part of our empire overseas, and in these he asked his listeners* interest, help and prayers. “The attitude of the average British citizen to what we call colonial affairs is, I am afraid, one of considerable apathy,” said the Bishop. “He perhaps delights to see large portions of the world’s surface painted red upon the map, but it needs some real shock to remind him of the responsibilities the Empire owes to the backward people dependant upon us. “The collapse of anything in the nature of a determined defence in Malaya, the ease with which the Japanese overran Burma, the increasing tension in India—these things have corre •o remind us of our trusteeship. And I think many men mudt have been very uncomfortable in their minds as they considered them in the months’ long campaign in the Solomons and New Guinea and the stories that have eotne down on the lips of soldiers, sailors and airmen of the friendliness and help given by these primitive folk to men in the time of their sufferings and hardships—this, too, has made men think. “It is not enough that men should have been so stirred that they are snore ready now to assist in supporting the work of Christian missions and other voluntary organisations working for native welfare,” the Bishop said “I hope that men everywhere w rll think our great Commonwealth toward these dependant people mav undergo a complete and radical change.”