THE METHODIST CONFERENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8949, 7 June 1907, Page 1

THE METHODIST CONFERENCE.

» LAY REPRESENTATION OF FIJI. , ' United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph— Copyright. SYDNEY, June 6. • Tb# conference further discussed f .%b.e question of the lay representation W Fiji. The Rev 0. H. Garland (New •Zealand) maintained that lay representation would give a preponderence of power to the native vote. The Rev IWoolls Rutledge urged that it would j»e unwise to- hand over such great ques- : lions. Granted that power the natives Would probably desire to go still further. They might start a rebellion cr recession if the proposals carried there Jrere negatived he/e. Mr Robson (New $outh Wales) advocated the granting tef representation. He warned the toaniereuce that if it was not very careful it would lose the Fijian Church altogether. The Rev W. Smale declared Absolutely on the side of lay represenijfeation. , Dr Brown said the only way they feould save the Fiji mission, was to make the Church of Fiji a ohurcb of Chiefs and people not a church of missionaries. |, One of the greatest anxieties, the Rev W. Smale said, was that Fiji was fc free church, and its influence was Spreading. It only wanted a chief of some importance to place himself at the head of the discontented natives fend they would have the Tonga experience repeated in Fiji. No greater »lur could be cast on Fiji than to say that out of its people, among whom they had been labouring for seventy years and from whom the Government took civil servants, Magistrates and doctors, there was not a solitary layman in -each circuit fit to- take his place Jn. the financial district Syncd and have to. voice in dividing his own money. QThe talk of preponderence of the native vote was a bogey. Dr Brown's motion, that the principle of . lay representation should be £ut into operation in the Fiji Synod of 1908 was carried, with a few dissentients.