PEACE MANIFESTO

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 349, 9 May 1928, Page 13

PEACE MANIFESTO

PRESBYTERIAN LEADER’S CRITICISM “DECKED IN OLIVE LEAVES” f Special to THB SUNJ CHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday. An attack on the peace manifesto which was passed at the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church was made by Dr. R. Erwin at a meeting of the Christchurch Presbytery to-day. "You may propagate your resolution and gather your men around you, and deck them out in olive leaves,” said Dr. Erwin, “but let anyone touch the liberty, or even the territory, of the British Empire, and in a moment you will find your peace uniform change to khaki. You ministers may accept this resolution, but your members never will.” Dr. Erwin took exception to portions of the manifesto. “It goes too far,” he said. He needed no conviction about the evils of war. He thought the Great War had put back the advance of civilisation of every nation but the United States, which was not in it long enough to be affected to the same extent as the others. He needed no persuasion about the attitude of the Christian Church toward “We have lost the cream of the generation through war,” he said, “and therefore I have no time for the evils that arise through it.” He thought war was the means of making 'degenerate races, and that people should not endorse false statements as those in the manifesto. "I am not prepared to endorse it,” he said. “All wars with the exception of -Civil wars have been waged in settling disputes between nations.” Dr. Erwin mentioned a young man in Auckland who, being a conscientious objector, refused to do military training. “If the position taken up by this man is correct, then everyone in the presbytery should be behind that conscietious objector,” he said. With regard to the menace of Russia, Dr. Erwin said:—“Does any man say that a man is not justified in standing up against the menace which obliterated the aristocracy, the middle classes and the intellectuals? Would a man be justified in bearing arms to resist a Power like that?” The remit was eventually referred to a special committee.