“THE PEACE BALLOT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22498, 16 February 1935, Page 16

“THE PEACE BALLOT”

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK’S PLEA

<Fbom Ode Own Correspondent. 1 ) LONDON,' January 12. The Archbishop of York and 23 bishops have signed a statement inviting people to answer the questionnaire known as the National Peace Ballot. This document, broadcast over the land by the League of Nations Union, and the explanatory leaflets, it will be remembered, were subjected to severe criticism in the House of Commons.

“ We have some anxiety lest the broad issues involved in the peace ballot may become obscured by discussion of details,” the bishops state. "A controversy which lately attracted much public attention was more concerned with explanatory leaflets accompanying the questionnaire than with the five questions themselves.

“It is most important that no one should be deterred from answering those questions by doubts that have been expressed concerning the leaflets. " The result of the ballot will be scanned not only by our own statesmen, but by the public of other countries. Great Britain stands a little apart from the European turmoil and may for that reason speak the more freely. Our responsibility is very, great.” Then follow some explanations regarding the various questions. The bishops who, in addition to the archbishop, signed the statement were the Bishops of Durham, Blackburn, Bradford, Bristol, Carlisle, Chester, Chelmsford, Derby, Ely, Guildford, Hereford, Leicester, Lichfield, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Rochester, St. Albans, Sheffield, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell, Wakefield and Worcester. SNARES FOR THE UNWARY.

It is only natural the Archbishop of York and the bishops should not go unchallenged. l “We have frequently bemoaned the circumstance that our clergy are prone to be deceived by the fraudulent prospectus,” says the Morning Post, “and in these secular matters they might do well to remember the words addressed by Cromwell to a pious deputation: ‘I entreat you in the bowels of the Lord, conceive it possible you may be wrong.’ “ His Grace of Canterbury (with more wisdom than his brother of York) may have perceived the snares set for the feet of the unwary in these innocentlooking questions. Question _4, for example, which is aimed against our armament industry, is well calculated to weight the military scales it. favour, of the anti-Christian Power of Soviet Russia, where the manufacture of arms is done by the State. Question 5 insinuates an even more perilous position for the national church, since it proposes to sanction ‘ military measures,’ in plain language, wars, as long as they are undertaken not for King and Country, but for the League of Nations. Is the Church of England going to approve such a doctrine? Such a question might prompt the most innocent of our episcopate to be a little more chary_ of embracing these specious and plausible doctrines.”