ANGLICAN PRIMACY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18544, 3 May 1922, Page 6

ANGLICAN PRIMACY

PKOFOSAL TO CENTRALISE. • LOST BY ONE VOTE. (Peu ’United Pbkss Association.) AUCKLAND, May 2. A proposal to centralise the Anglican primacy in Wellington came before the Synod this evening. The Primate moved the second reading of the Bill. Bishop Julius said he was not altogether satisfied with the conditions of the Bill, and was doubtful whether it would work properly. The feeling at present was reflected in the decisions of the diocesan synods, three of which had accepted the principle involved and three had rejected it. In these circumstances he would not press 'the Bill Mr H. D. Andrews, of Christchurch, opposed the Bill. He particularly criticised the proposal to deprive the General Synod of any voice in' the election. There were many advantages in the General Synod moving from place to place, one of which was that churchmen had opportunities to meet and exchange views with their colleagues in other dioceses. Archdeacon G. Mao Murray said that in 1868, when the Primacy was in Auckland, the then political capital of New Zealand, Bishop Selwyn said it was not expedient that the seat of Primacy should be at the seat of Government. It was too much to expect the Diocesan Synod of Wellington to set its own interests aside in favour of the New Zealand province as a whole. Bishop Sadlier supported the Bill on Ihe ground that it made for efficiency in the work of the church.

It was strongly supported on similar grounds by Archdeacon Johnson, of- Wellington. The. Bill was lost by one vote on a division.