METHODIST CHURCH

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 25, 24 October 1921, Page 9

METHODIST CHURCH

PROHIBITION, DIVORCE, AND RACE PERMITS. The following motions were carried at a meeting in Wellington on Friday I(LHt of the Temperance and Morals Committee Of the Methodist Church of New Zealand: — * . -.i. “That this committee views with alarm representations made by certain sections of the white population of Samoa in the direction of repealing the law enforcing prohibition in flial dependency, and strongly deprecates any attempts t° interfere with the. operation of the law now in force.” „ “Tho Temperance and Morals committee of the Methodist Church of New Zealand congratulates the Premier on his recent utterance re the subject of divorce. It calls the attention of Iho Government and Parliament to the .case with which divorce may now be obtained, and the. disastrous consequences accruing to family life in New Zealand, and it very earnestly prays that Government and Parliament will reconsider the matter at an early date, and this session so legislate that tho present laws will be repealed, and so altered to make much more difficult to obtain divorce. “That this committee, representing ttie Methodist Church of New Zealand, enters its emphatic protest against any increase of race meeting permits. It wishes to point out that the personnel of the Racing Commission were all men sympathetic with racing; that tho original question was whether there should be any increase in the number of permits, not, as is now suggested, how should permits bo allotted. This committee affirms its strong conviction That, in this time ot financial stress and straiii, further opportunities of wasting time needed lor production, and of fostering the gamblin'' spirit among the people, should not be° offered by Parliament. We likewise affirm our strong conviction that it I arliament should take any action at all it should bo in the direction of reducing rather than increasing the number ot permits, and wo earnestly trust this will bo the result of its deliberations.