BISHOP OF LONDON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20039, 4 March 1927, Page 10

BISHOP OF LONDON

VISIT TO AUCKLAND. ADDRESS TO ROTARIANS. (Special tg Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, March 3. Although the Bishop of London (Dr Ingram) is not officially a Rotarian, he claims to be one in fact. The hearty welcome ho received at the New Zealand Rotary Conference’s luncheon in the Town Hall seemed to confirm the claim. The Bishop compressed a great deal into a rapid informal little address. “As I go round the world I always seem to turn up at the right time,” he said. “I reached Ottawa for the centenary celebrations. and they stated that 1 had come all the way specially to be present. Perhaps you will say the same. 1 was a Rotarian before they were ever started,” continued the bishop. Forty-two years ago I went down to Bethnal Green in a hansom cab to find the Oxford House. It was the first hansom that had never been seen there. I asked the beery cabman where the Oxford House was. He replied: ‘ls it the madhouse you mean?’ Well, I lived there for nine years in the middle of East London, with first nine, and later on 30 young men, all from the university, and unpaid. We did settlement work, helped the poor, gave out free lunches, organised twopenny dramatics and held mission services. If that is not Rotary work, what is? I am not a Rotarian but I an heart and soul with you people.” Dr Ingram went on to name three things that the Rotarians of the world ought to be able to do. The first, he said, was to avoid misunderstandings among the nations of the Empire. He had heard much on his travels about freedom to work out our own destiny, and about Great Britain being a decaying nation. “Como over and see if we are?” ho said. “Great Britain never stood higher in prestige than she docs to-day. She practically rules the League of Nations. The Bank of England is behind all the recoveries that, are being made in the world. I saw the general strike, and X sav without hesitation that no other nation bn earth could have gone through it as we did. The second task was to help with the very difficulty migration question. It must be looked at from the local and Empire point of view. lo find a solution was nfst beyond the wit ot man. New Zealand needed more people, and more people meant greater consumption and more jobs. He waited Rotarians to see that the new arrivals got jobs, and did not take those of other people thereby. Rotarians should do they coia ld to overcome the apathy and hostility toward the I cague of Nations. The-League was something of paramount importance m the preservation of world peace. In five years it had stopped five wars, had repatriated 1,000,000 people, had restored three nations to solvency, had set standards of child welfare, had done much to improve the health of the native peoples m the mandated territories, and had rescued tWands of people from the Turk. . splendid record'.