“INSULT TO CHRISTIANS"

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 1 September 1928, Page 1

“INSULT TO CHRISTIANS"

Flyers’ Arrival on Sunday

CHRISTCHURCH CLERGY PROTEST

Press Association CHRISTCHURCH. To-day. SMITH, ULM. SYDNEY. Christchurch churchmen /strongly protest against, the changed plans involving your arrival on Sunday. I support the protest. Cannot your departure be delayed?—(Signed) Archer, Mayor."

Tli Mayor of Christchurch, the Rev. J. K. Archer, at the request of a deputation from the Christchurch Ministers’ Association, this morning sent this cablegram to Squadron-Leader C. E. Kingsford Smith, as a protest against the arrival of the Southern Cross on Sunday. Mr. Archer added that personally

he would not take any part in the welcome on Sunday, or allow himself to be represented. The Rev. D. Gardner Miller, addressing the Mayor, read the following statement as the opinion of the Ministers’ Association: “We protest very strongly against the action of the Tasman flyers in arriving here on Sunday. A part altogether from the fact that this sudden change in programme upsets all the carefully-made arrangements for their reception here on Monday, with the consequent detrimental effect on the Unemployment Fund, it is not in the best of interests of the Dominion that the sanctions of the day of rest should be set at naught.” Replying the Mayor said, “I would like to say quite definitely that i find myself in complete agreement with the protest that has been voiced.

| "As Mayor I was neither consulted r.or informed of the chanQe of programme. I only discovered it in the newspapers this morning. “I understand that the news was in Christchurch at 9 o'clock last night. ; If I had been consulted then, as T ; think I should have been. I would have 1 probably taken immediate steps to I see if the journey coaid not have | been made later. It will probably be said that the church people are not obliged to go to the see the flyers arrive, which is undoubtedly true, but it will unsettle the community for the whole day. It is placing unnecesary temptation in the way of the people, and particularly of young pe*< pie.” "We will probably be termed by son*people ‘wowsers',” added the Mayor, j "but you will all agree that there is | such a thing as Christian principles “I think myself that the arrival 1 of the flyers to-morrow is an insult to the Christian community as a whole. j "If their arrival on Sunday was an ' absolute necessity we would still have ■ regretted it, but we would have very I likely fallen into line. So far as 1 can see there is no need for it. The • flyers have been hanging round Au»i tralia for a number of weeks." j “HEARTIEST WELCOME AWAITS THEM” MR. COATES’S MESSAGE (Soecial to TIIE SL X ) ! "The previous achievements •-f Suuadroii -Le.-der Kingsford-femith ai* I { his associates afford su;cient justifiesi tion for assuming that rhey will su* - eessfullv accomplish their Might to New Zealand,” said the Frunt Minuter, the Ttt. Hon. J. G. Coates, th ] moming"l feel sure that X voice Lit teelincs of admiration which will inspire I our citizens for the skill and court, e of these aviators in pioneerin Ban air trail between Australia and the J>o - minion, thereby completing th« mr I chain between the .Motherland and N" v i Zealand. | "The heartiest of welcome, awa:-* [ them.”