BISHOP ON ART AND MORALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15056, 27 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

BISHOP ON ART AND MORALS.

OBJECTS TO MR. BEECHAM'S . ENGAGEMENT.

A CONCERT PROTEST.

CossidEsablb stir was created at the annual meeting of the Halle Concert. Society at Manchester, when Bishop Welldon, the Dean of Manchester, who ia ; one of the ardent supporters of the society, made a protest against tho engagement of Mr, Thomas Beechara to conduct one of the concerts. The concert belonged to the series of last. season.

Mr. Beeeham in November : of last year was co-respondent in the divorce suit of Foster v. Foster, in which Mr. George Sherwood Foster, the artist, was awarded a decree nisi against his wife, with costs against Mr. Beechain. \.

" I do not wish, to enter into any painful personal questions," said the dean, "and [ have •written, out a, statement which I will read. It may be taken to represent my own yiews and those of others, but even if it only represents my own I shall have expressed thenu It is as follows :— " ' We do not like to pry into the lives of artistes who come to Manchester: Wa ask no questions about them. We gladly give them a cordial welcome. But it is impossible that we \ should shut our eyes to notorious facts which have been recently exposed in a court of law. , - , '"Even if the committee should take what I can only call : the miserable view that art has nothing to. do>wifch morals, still there are, I think, at least two classes of persons who may not unfairly look to them for consideration. . • ;

• " ' One class consist* of such subscribers to the concerts as the clergy and ministers of religion, and' the other of persona who are bound officially, no less than personally, to uphold a moral,, standard. They have paid for their tickets, and is ;it right to place them; in. such apposition that if they are present at "a concert they may do* allowed to condone, if not approve, immorality. ; -j ;: : ; ; " 'Then there is the second' claw—the ladies of the choir, to whom a great debt is owing from the citizens of Manchester; and they, or some of them, may reasonably object to association wjth a man whom they would not wish to meet and, know in private life.' "... .- ~}_

The biahop added : " I cannot- say more on this disagreeable topic,, but. I regret that the committee have forgotten "what is due to the ?»igh character, of the Hallo concerts."

It was with great reluctance, the dean added, that he made this, protest, but it expressed his own view' and that of two or three people who had communicated with him. . ' ; The chairman explained that the engagement of Mr. Reeeharn had been made some considerable time befjjro the taw Court proceedings, and if it bad not been carried out the committee might have been liable to ah action for breach of contract. ; ,

Bishop Welldon has been in succession master- of Dulwich College, headmaster of Harrow School, 1885-98 5 Bishop of Galcutta, 18984902.; Canon of Westminster, 1902-6 ; and Dean of Manchester since.