MINING AREAS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 253, 24 September 1929, Page 2

MINING AREAS

MINISTER’S INDICTMENT. IRRELIGIOUS CONDITIONS. Per Press Association. HAMILTON, Sept. 23. Describing tho conditions ot some of the mining areas in Westland where he reoently toured, Rev. H. G. Gilbert, a Presbyterian minister, when preaching last night, said that hundreds of families 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, blit devoted it to sports. Public houses were kept open without hindrance and picture shows also. The police were helpless to enforce the law which was openly defied. Men regarded the Church, and the police and similar institutions as upholders of the capitalistic .system to which they ivero bitterly opposed Children in .the Communist Sunday schools were given plasphemous instruction and taught to ridicule things which Christian- people held sacred. At funerals th?re was absolutely no religious service-; the body was placed in tho grave, somebody might say a few words on brotherhood, and a selection was played on the bagpipes. • i , , Mr Gilbert did not think the people were to be altogether blamed. They were the' descendants of two or three generations who had lived tinder undesirable conditions, but tire problem had to be faced. -