PRESBYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 966, 5 November 1910, Page 10

PRESBYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

———; .. ORDER OP BUSINESS. CEfDECH - AND -LABOUR. : The.General i Assembly; of the Presbyterian Church of Now Zealand will be opened 'on Wednesday evening next in St. Andrew's Church, Auckland, with devotional exercises ' conducted- by the re-, tiring Moderator, the Rev. J. H. MacKenzio, of Selson. After the service the Assembly will bo constituted, and all the preliminary formal business done. Amongst this is the election of tho new Moderator, who, when elected, will deliver his. inaugural address. On Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday following the Assembly. will transact the usual business, most of which arises, out of reports o£ select committees. Ono of these reports, that on _ the Stato of Religion and Morals, which will be recoived on Thursday, contain, tis usual, a great deal that is interesting to laymen, and those outside the palo of the Church.

Among other' tasks entrusted to the committee Inst year was that of making inquiry regarding the relation of the Church to organised labour, and the result o£ their investigations is a voluminout and very; interesting report. Most of tho information has been collected byletter, and several of the replies from members of the Church in different parts of America, the United Kingdom; and Australia, are published in full. The report states:— .

"The nervo o£ the matter is touched by those who write: The workers must be: approached 'not by fawning and flattering the unionists, but they have an impression that we fawn on the rich and neglect the poor';.'they have mi impression that we care for the rich'; 'much of. the estrangement or indifference of working men is duo to misunderstanding of tho Church and its purposes.' Or, more fully: 'The workers deny having left tho churches, but assert that tho churches have deserted them. Their leaders declare that the: workers as a whole are not hostile to religion, but only to organised Christianity as represented by tuo churches. In their struggles to get. oi>pressivo conditions of 'labour lessened, to get hours reduced, to get better wages, lu get women's and children's lot made more humane, they say they got neither sympathy nor help from the churches; and now they declare they don't need them. Nay, taore, whatever, reforms and ameliorations of their lot havo been won, have been achioved without tho aid or tho churches. . . . Now, whatever scheme of co-operation may be thought of between the labour movement and tho churches, it should be, before all things, one of genuine sympathy with the toiling i..«sses in their efforts for the betterment o: their lot.'"

After the opening service and inaugural ceremony on Wednesday evening, tho, Synod will ineet daily at 10 a.m., sitting in the morning, afternoon and evening, until the following Tuesday evening. On the afternoon of Friday, November 11, there will be held an evangelistic conference in St. David's Church, and in tho evening, in the .Choral Hall, the. P.W.M.U. annual meeting and tea will be held, and there will be a Sunday schools' demonstration in St. Andrew's Church.—"Auckland Star."