THE PRIMATE OF AUSTRALIA MAKES A PLEA.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 249, 18 March 1916, Page 4

THE PRIMATE OF AUSTRALIA MAKES A PLEA.

In his Presidential address at the Opening of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, Archbishop Wright said: “We are now awake to the grim truth that, no matter how sacred is the crusade which we wage for all that is most spiritual m humanity, we shall yet be worsted unless we fling aside everything that is usual and concentrate our entire Empire, money, men, machines, thought, fiscal, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual resources alike to the supreme end of ( rushing the foe who threatens to extinguish all the holiest aspirations of mankind. The Church has done more than plead. She has made good her plea by giving of her best. Thousands of her most vigorous sons are in the fighting line. She has done her part in ministering to the temporal and spiritual welfare of the soldiers.” Archbishop Wright asked his hearers to ask for shortened hours for liquor trading, and said:—“The present attitude of the (iovernment looks like unworthy subservience to unpatriotic selfishness. What have we done to help to break the shackles of the drinking habit by which our very national existence has been threatened in the war, and which is still counted as an asset by our enemies? What have we done to help a Government, apparently opportunist, in this matter to resist the selfish remonstrance of the organised vested interests of the drink trade? 1 believe that if we are time-serving or apathetic on this matter, we shall one day be convicted of having been found wanting by our nation in her need. The Government of New South Wales stands by inert with folded hands, and’makes no suggestion. It apparently is content with things as they are though the < urse of these long hours to our fighting strength is denounced by impartial authorities.”