RACE PROBLEMS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12434, 30 April 1926, Page 7

RACE PROBLEMS

PREJUDICE BEING KINDLED FANNED BY FILMS AND PLAYS STATEMENT BY DR. MOTT Per Press Association, DUNEDIN, April 29. "It is positively alarming,” said Dr. Mott* speaking an tlie race problem at the Dominion missionary meeting, “to see what fires of racial prejudice are being kindled and fanned by certain films and plays that are tolerated in parts of the world, which are veritable tinder boxes; not only alarming, but criminal.” He referred to films he had lately seen in the Dutch East Indies, which the natives could not possibly look upon without having their racial passions inflamed. * The same land of thing was going on up and down China. It called for interna* tional as well as inter-racial collabora-

tion. He . suggested a continuous intensive educational campaign in connection with the primary and secondary schools. Speaking further on race problems, he urged the holding of intimate inter-racial conferences, and stressed the tremendous value of having contacts with the home life of other races.

In a general survey, the Her. E. P. Blamires, Methodist director of youth work, stated that the Bible class movement had largely stopped the previous leakage between the Sunday school and the adults’ church membership. It was a vigorous movement in the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist Churches, and more recently in the Anglican Church. New Zealand lacked missionary co-operation among tho churches. One church had missionary headquarters in Wellington, another in Auckland, and another in Dunedin. Each was preoccupied with interna) problems, but co-operation was essential for maximum attainment.