MISSIONARIES AND TRADERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10541, 24 August 1910, Page 2

MISSIONARIES AND TRADERS.

(Per Press Association.) Cliristchurch, August 23. Regarding the cable message referring to missionaries in the New Hebrides, the Rev. T. Tait, of Sc. Paul's Presbyterian Church, states that the situation is evidently one resolving itself into a. difference of ideals —the ideal of the Christian missionary und the ideal of a French trader.

"Oilr missionaries are certainly beyond reproach," says Mr Tait, "and the cabled remarks, which cast reflections upon them, have evidently been made in a moment of excitement. Time and again our missionaries have had trouble with the French traders, especially in the matter of supplying the natives with liquor. Our missionaries naturally seek to safeguard the morals of the natives, and in doing this they come into collision with the policy of the French traders. Had it not been for the heroic and persistent efforts of these same missionaries the lives of the traders in some of the islands at least would be unsafe."