JOINT APPEAL BY CHURCHMEN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 49, 20 November 1937, Page 6

JOINT APPEAL BY CHURCHMEN

Press Association 'I

Drastic Action to Curb Social Evils LIQUOR AT DANCES

(By Telegraph —

AUCKLAND, Last Night. Since the publication on April 12 of the report of the Maternity Services Investigation Committee, which wias set up by the Government to inquire into the incidence of abortion in New Zealand, a flood of resolutions from numerous t>oufces has been sent to the Government. The clerics of Auckland, prominent throughout New Zealand churches, have prepared a ' joint appeal to the Government, which strikes a rather difierent note from the formal resolutions to which much publicitv has been giveii. ''We urge upon the Government the duty: of taking immediate and drastic action, to deal with an evil that threatens the very existence of the nation," the appeal states. ' 'We also believe - the Government should deal with certain provocative causes of the situation complained of, including the sale of salacious literature and the use of liquor at and in the vicinity of'public dances. "We make this appeal to the Government with a ileep sense of our responsibility ' to the nation, and with tho very gravest sense of the extreme urgenyy of the matter and of irreparable harm inflicted on tbe minds and hearts of the young by these evils." Tbe Signatories to the appeal are Archbishop Averill, Bishop Liston; the Rev. J. A. Allan, - representing the moderator of the Prosbyterian Church; the Eev. E. D. Patchqtt, chairman of the Auckland Methodist District Synod; Dv. .T J. North, representing the 4uchland. Baptist Auxiliary; the Eev. H.Johnsbn, moderator of. the Auckland Congiegational Churches; Brigadier A. J. Sutter, -'Auckland- • divisiohal commander of- the - Salvation Army; the Be'v. A.. Astor, ' rabbi" of ■' the Auckland Hebrew cohgregation.