RELIGION AND POLITICS

Southland Times, Issue 18838, 3 June 1920, Page 5

RELIGION AND POLITICS

PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION. REPLY TO CRITICISM. (Special to the Times.) CHRIST CHURCH, June 2. At a meeting of the St. Albans branch of the Protestant Political Association, Mr A. I). Htissail, one of the delegates to the recent dominion conference in Wellington, made the foi'owing statement:

"Some of tl.c newspapers h:ivc criticised us strongly in regard to the last general election. They wondered why the Protestant Political Association supported candidates w'nn had declared themselves in favour of the deform Party. The only answer, and the very true answer, is this: that those’ men who stood, speaking generally, in the interests of the Reform Party were the men who were willing to suliseribe to the platform of the Protestant Political Association,

and it was not reasonable to expect that the Protestant Association was going to support men, no matter what party they belonged to, who were opposed to our platform. That is the reason why the Protestant Association was found to support generally the candidates who were nominees of Mr Massey’s party. This is the ‘olf season as far as politics are concerned, but I am quite certain that when the next genera! election comes along you will lind the Protestant Association exercising its influence just as it did in the election that has gone.”