THE NEW SECRETARY OF THE N.Z. ALLIANCE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VIII, Issue 409, 26 May 1898, Page 16

THE NEW SECRETARY OF THE N.Z. ALLIANCE.

The late secretary of the New Zealand Alliance, the Rev. Walker, was a gentleman deservedly respected by all classes of the community. He was earnest, courteous, tolerant, and capable. He was never known to wound the feelings of any person opposed to him, and, at the same time, he was fearless in his advocacy of the cause he was actively engaged in. Some time previous to his departure from our shores, it was well known that there was severe friction between himself and the extreme section of his people, viz., those

led by the Rev. Isitt, and that the rupture caused thereby was so wide in its nature as to be rendered scarcely possible of being bridged over. The Rev. Walker found things so exceedingly unpleasant that his only alternative was to resign the post he had held with distinguished ability for so manj years. And he is succeeded by a gentleman who was a minister of the gospel in the Wairarapa district —the Rev. Judkins. The new organising secretary of the Alliance has been lecturing in Auckland City, also in the suburbs and at the Thames, and it is not uncharitable to say that his mission so far has not been a signal success. At the Thames he was asked a very fair and pertinent question by the Rev. F. W. Boys— re the “ capture of the Alliance” —which we understand, in mining parlance, means the jumping of the Rev. Mr Walker’s claim. The new secretary appears to have evaded the direct question by stating “That he had travelled the colony and no question had been asked him in reference to the ‘ capture,’ and that he should not publicly make a statement unless a question was asked.” Mr Boys thereupon resolved to ask the question himself, but appears to have obtained no satisfactory reply. In a letter, recently published in the Netv Zealand Times, over the signature of Fred. W. Boys, Primitive Methodist Minister, Thames, a little light is thrown on the subject which refers to the Yeeig nation of the Rev. Walker and bears out a previous contention, viz.: 'I hat the Rev. Walker was too broad in mind, too generous in disposition, and altogether too manly to be made a cats-paw of by the extreme fanatical section of the Alliance, and consequently he took the only manly course open to him when he tendered his resignation and severed his connection with narrow bigotry and with intolerance. The concluding part of the Rev. Boys’s published letter proves clearly that the inveterate hatred of the Hon. Seddon was a powerful factor in the

cause of the Rev. Walker’s resignation, and Mr Boy’s comparison between the late secretary of the Alliance and the new secretary is certainly not very compliment try to the latter. Mr Boys states-—“Mr Walker felt himself (as stated to me) elbowed out by a few intolerant persons because he had not the orthodox amount of hatred for the Hon. R. Seddon. The present lecturer does not allow our week night meetings to pass without reference to the Premier, and unlike Mr Walker, who, by his courtesy, had the respect of all classes save the intolerant, Mr Judkins had the impudence to refer to all who had not voted as he wished as * murderers.’ I claim, sir, to be an earnest temperance advocate, and feel the cause is too noble a one to be limited to any political color, or to be only represented by men who will replace a man of Mr Walker’s administrative ability with one so inexperienced as Mr Judkins, who, no doubt, is a very good man in his way.” Could anything show more clearly than the above abstract from this broad-minded clergyman’s letter that the fanatical section of the prohibitionists are running their show on very narrow and very dangerous political lines.