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Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 532, 23 October 1915, Page 8

Yesterday's debate in the Synod on a motion condemning rattles and art unions as means of raising money for patriotic funds merely showed the Anglican clergy entrenched behind first principles. The Church believes that gambling is a vice that leads to much evil, and to be consistent it must necessarily hold that any method of raising money which holds out the lure of something for nothing is a form of gambling and therefore to be discouraged. The attitude is quite sound in logic, but in dealing with human affairs it has to be recognised that there is an influence which escapes logic, and that is the spirit. Without asserting the heresy that the end justifies the means we may nevertheless safely assert that intention is a factor in the morality, or otherwise, of all acts, and that the spirit in which the great majority of people buy a ticket in an art union for patriotic purposes does not even remotely resemble; the gambling spirit. Because the object of such art unions is the real lure for the public's shillings they are quite innocuous. Of course, the sincerity of the Church must be conceded (and its consistency, apart from that little question of bazaar raffles introduced by one member) but it seems that the strongest argument of the Church is that the art union is an undignified means of raising funds, particularly when it becomes a State institution. We agree with the Rev. Mr Mathias that the Minister of Internal Affairs has committed an indignity in devising a gigantic art union to be hawked through the country, and agree that taxation is the only proper method of using the spirit of sacrifice in raising money for the nation's needs. There the clergy are on strong ground.