ENGLAND’S BAD DAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 916, 8 March 1930, Page 10

ENGLAND’S BAD DAY

PROPOSED SEPARATION OF STATE AND CHURCH MOVE DEPRECATED “It will be a bad day for England if she does not have some practical and definite recognition of God and of religion,” declared Archbishop Averill at a farewell function last evening. He was referring to the move for the disestablishment of the Church of England. Strongly deprecating the proposal to separate the State and Church in England, the Archbishop said he preferred to see affairs remain as they had been for centuries past. He suggested that if he explained the position in New Zealand, the mother church might be assisted, particularly since the Enabling Bill, passed by synod, had made the church here freer and more independent. The greater their independence as the church, the more they loved and honoured the mother church. He ridiculed the idea that because of their freedom and independence they lacked love, honour and respect for the motherland and the mother church, and he proposed to tell England of the veneration and affection existing in New Zealand. The New Zealand church had substantially assisted England by the Church of England Settlement Scheme, the Auckland committee alone having placed 300 hoys on suitable farms, and the majority of the lads had made good.