MINISTER’S CHARGES

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1929, Page 7

MINISTER’S CHARGES

CONDITIONS ON WEST COAST. 'HAMILTON, Sept. 23. Describing conditions in some mining areas on the West Coast where he recently toured, the Rev H. G. Gilbert, Presbyterian minister, preaching last night, sai dthat, hundreds of families were growing lip in a state of actual antagonism towards religious things. They would have nothing to do with church, with the Bible, hymn book or anything pertaining to Christianity. They did not honour the Sabbath in the least, but devoted it to sports. Public houses kept open without hindrance, and picture shows also. The police, said Air Gilbert, were helpless to enforce the law, which ovas openly defied. Men regarded the church and the police force as similar institutions, as upholders of the capitalistic system to which they were bitterly opposed. Children in Communist Sunday Schools were g'ven blasphemous instruction and taugut to ridicule the things which Christian people held sacred. At funerals there was absolutely no religious service. The body was placed in a grave. Somebody might say a few words on brotherhood, and a selection might be played on the bagpipes. Mr Gilbert said he did not think that the people were to be altogether blamed. They were the descendants of two or three generations who had lived under undesirable conditions, but the problem had to fie faced. REPLY BY MESSRS HOLLAND AND O’BRlJtiV, WELLINGTON, Sept. 23. Mr H. E. Holland (Leader of the, Labour Party, and M.P. for Buller), and Mr J. O’Brien (M.P. for Westland; handed the fallowing statement to the Press this evening. “We have read with amazement the Press Association message regarding the utterances of the Rev. G. H. Gilbert, at Hamilton yesterday, and find it Hard to believe that he has been correctly reported. If the report is not incorrect, however, the reverend gentleman has allowed his imagination to play havoc with his veracity. The people of the West Coast of the South Island maintain standards of citizenship and morality as high as those in any part of the world, and in proportion to the population there are as many churches and churchgoers as in any other part of the Dominion. “It is reckless and foolishly absurd to say that the public houses and picture shows in the mining towns keep open in defiance of the law. The hotels arc as well conducted as elsewhere, and such picture shows as open on Sundays do so with the permission of .ne Minister for Internal Affairs and devote their net takings to the relief of distress cases. Moreover, balancesheets of all income and expenditure are presented to the police, furnishing an additional guarantee that the funds so raised are safeguarded. In any case there is no difference whatever in principle between the Sunday concerts in the big cities, which such large numbers of church-goers attend, and the picture showc in the isolated mining centres, which many churchgoers also attend after church. “Finally, Air Gilbert’s reference to the conduct of funerals is both callous and wretchedly untrue, and will be resented not only by the people of tlie mining towns, hut by every citizen of New Zealand with a knowledge of the West Coast and its splendid people. It is deplorable in the extreme that any member of the clergy should use the pulpit for the dissemination of mischievous statements that are so wide.iv separated from fact.”