THE WEST COAST

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 253, 24 September 1929, Page 10

THE WEST COAST

CLERGYMAN’S STATEMENT,

REPLY BY MEMBERS OF PAR-

LIAMENT.

Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 23. Mr H. E. Holland (leader of the Labour Party and M.P. for Buffer) and Mr J. O’Brien (M.P. for Westland) handed the following statement to the Press this evening:— “We have read with amazement the Press Association message regarding the utterances of Rev. G. H. Gilbert at Hamilton yesterday, and find it hard to believe that he has been correctly reported. If the report is not incorrect, however, the reverend gentleman has allowed his imagination to play havoc with his veracity. “The people of the West Coast of the South Island maintain standards of citizenship and morality as high as those in any part of the world, and in proportion to the population there are as many churches and church-goers as in any other part of the Dominion. It is recklessly and foolishly absurd to say that the public-houses and picture shows in the mining towns keep open in defiance of the law. The hotels are as well conducted as elsewhere, and such picture shows as open on Sundays do so with the permission of the Minister of Internal Affairs, and devote their net takings to the relief of distress cases. Moreover, balance-sheets of all income and expenditure are presented to the police—furnishing an additional guarantee that the funds so raised are safeguarded. In any case there is no difference whatever in principle between the Sunday concerts in the big cities, which such large numbers of church-goers attend, and the picture shows in the isolated mining centres, which many church-goers also attend after church. • “Finally, Mr Gilbert’s reference to the conduct of funerals is both callous and wretchedly untrue, and will be resented not only by the people of the mining towns, but by every citizen of New Zealand .with a knowledge of the West Coast and its splendid people. It is deplorable in the extreme that anv member of the clergy should use the pulpit for the dissemination of mischievous statements that are so widely separated from fact.”

In the,course of a sermon at Hamilton Rev. G. H. Gilbert said that hundreds of families in Westland were growing up in a state of actual antagonism' towards religious things. They would have nothing to do with the Church, the Bible, the hymn book, or anything pertaining to Christianity. They did not honour the Sabbath in the least, but dpvoted it to sports. The public-houses 'kept open without hindrance, and the picture shows also.