Delivered by the Bishop of the Diocese, at the Synod Evensong, in the Cathedral Church of Holy Trinity, August 27th, 1964.

The Epistle to the Phillippians 3 13 & 14 (J. B. Phillips version),

"I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal--my reward, the honour of being called by God in Christ."

There is our vision, our calling, and our hope.

If we are to realize it and be faithful to it then the old ways must in large measure go.

I do not know what the future holds for us, one step is enough, but I do know that in this challenging time in which we are living we need radical reformation based on deep self-examination. I cannot do this for you. We are all in need of it.

The old ways, beloved of so many of us as they should be, for they brought us to where we are to-day, the old structures which served so well for a time, are really designed for a very different situation and for a very different time than that in which we now live. I cannot disguise from you that the changes to which we are being called will give pain to many of us. We cannot, on that score, stand aside from them. For our Lord the Cross was a necessary prelude to the resurrection life. It cannot be any different for us.

[2] We need to begin with a renewed and deepened understanding of God. God is a "missionary God". He is active in his world. He is the initiator of all movements for good in the world as well as in the Church. The Church has a special task as a part of the Divine Mission and, if it is faithful, as the agent of that Mission in and to the world.

Because we have all been conditioned to think of missions we have lost sight of this great truth. We think of the Anglican Mission, the Methodist Mission, The Roman Catholic Mission--when there is really only God's Mission. Missions become an organization, in the beginning at least, supported from outside. But Mission is quite different. It involves a sense of purpose, it necessarily implies movement, and it has an end and a goal born of the awareness that the Last Days are at hand.

Because this is so the Church, the Diocese, the local congregation can only be on mission through movement. And only through movement which is inspired by a living sense of the purpose of God and directed to the goal of which it is always conscious.

When the Church, diocese or local congregation is static, settled, established, untroubled, concerned with itself, separated from the world, then it is not a mission it is dead.

The Church of God--you and I--is sent by God to the world. Not to some ideal world, but to our modern world in which we live.

As we look at the world and seek to fulfil our mission we must do three things, and do them together.

We must accept the world and love it, for it is God's world, made by Him, designed to serve and glorify Him.

We must, also, reject the world because it is in the power of the Evil One.

[3] And then we must gladly and joyfully accept it and love it at an even deeper level because it has been redeemed. There is a new creation in Christ, and behold old things are passing away as He makes all things new. The whole creation is groaning and labouring waiting for its redemption to be accomplished--and we are the bearers of the great secret, the good news that this has already been achieved in Christ.

Because of Jesus and His life the world has been redeemed, saved, restored, made new. But at the same time this has yet to be realised by the world and worked out in individuals. There is this "yes" and this "not yet" and so there is a tension at the heart of human life in the world. In this tension the Church is, humanly speaking, caught up. But because Christ is the Lord of all life it is a creative tension, containing all the hopes which wait to spring to birth. Jesus Christ is Lord of yesterday and tomorrow, and of today, and His will shall prevail.

He has changed history and the Church is set in the World to be the agent of that decisive change. We cannot be true to our role if we simply accept things as they are or as they always have been, either in the Church or in the world. We have a prophetic function and duty--to proclaim the word of the Lord so that it may have free course in the world and in our own lives.

We do not stand outside the world to apply to it absolute judgments from above, from a position of superiority. "In mission we do not talk about religion, but about concrete questions and facts of life in this world." If we are to do this then there must be on the part of the clergy and the regular worshipper a searching self-examination of all our preconceived ideas. This is especially true of the clergy. For most of us our professional theological education ignored the world and its problems or treated it simply as the object of our benefactions. This simply will not do. All of our training [3/4] has pre-supposed a static situation, a non-missionary situation. At the centre of our training there was set not the urgency of mission but the art of continuing a secure society. Our practical training was designed not for evangelism but for the shepherding of the faithful. Our faithful tend to see this as our chief task. Then we come here into another kind of challenge. Now we discover that all over the world the old pattern is being challenged, weighed in the balance and found wanting. It ought not to surprise us that we are distressed, frustrated, and sometimes despairing. We ought to realise that much of what we have in the way of intellectual, practical, and pastoral baggage is excess weight and it must be jettisoned.

Our real task as a Church--clergy and laity alike--is not in the Church, but in the world. We are not to be against the world; rather we are sent to love and serve the world. We do not, or ought not, to condescend to the world, we are not here just to oppose the world. Rather in humility we call to it from in front, to follow where Christ is leading the Church and the world. And we call because our fellowship is incomplete without our brethren who are in the world. We point away from ourselves to Christ who still waits to rule and who yet does rule.

We need abiding faith such as He alone can give and courage drawn from His strength for this task. But, we can only be in front through love and service. We have no other ground on which to stand, no other claims to make--and so we follow Christ who came to serve. In this way we can be prepared to enter into actual situations in the real world where men suffer, sorrow, lust, and are puzzled, and like Christ we come not to reprove nor to correct, but to be with them where they are and as they are. We can only do this as we ourselves are a loving brotherhood. As such we seek to identify ourselves with men, and by so doing to suffer with them. [4/5] It is not a comfortable calling--how can it be when it is carried out on a Cross?

As has been very well said: "The Church is necessarily in the world, as well as with and for the world . . . . the Church stands in and with the world by its mission, by its taking the world to itself as the object of its love and concern, by identifying itself with the world as Christ identified himself with sinful humanity . . . . the Church's life before God is not a life for itself, but for the world."

This must involve emptying ourselves, giving to the full. It demands service to our neighbours which springs from the knowledge that God is there in them and with them. We are going not to strangers, but to brethren.

We all need to look very carefully at the ordering of our life to see to what extent we are fencing ourselves off from the world and simply being occupied with ourselves and the preservation of ourselves. There must be constant revision, constant watchfulness, constant reformation. There is a heavy dead weight from the past which robs us of that flexibility which is of the essence of mission. We must be free to reach out, to go where people are who do not know nor love Christ. This is the priority of our task. They do not come to seen Him: we go to reveal Him.

This raises fundamental questions about the nature of evangelism, about how we set about our task. What I say now, I want to emphasise, applies to the whole Church--to clergy and laity alike.

True evangelism is not words at all; it is not storming the citadels of men's souls by violent assault. It is as the light which shines in the darkness, it is a loving presence. This is slower, more costly, but most effective. There will be words, of course, but I think [5/6] they come later. This being with men demands from us time to wait upon God, it demands the heroic pursuit of holiness so that God can be present "in the midst" through us. Not words but loving relationship convert.

When we see this to be so, then our worship assumes a new place in our lives. It becomes, among other things, the way in which the holy community renews and revitalises itself for life in the world. Holy Communion then is seen to be "both the culminating point and the starting point" of our mission. "It is the meeting place of those whom Christ sends out to meet men, and of all who, by their presence, will have been led to recognize the Lord whom they served without yet knowing Him." There at the altar we find the strength to go out into the world. In the world those who see Christ are drawn back to the altar.

If we truly believe in what God has done, through Christ for His world, and for all men, then the test of our belief will be found in our obedience to the mission in and to the world.

We are not obedient to that mission when, whilst proclaiming the equality of all men in Christ, we import from another culture a brand or expression of Christianity which we seek to impose from above. "The Word of God cannot and must not be imprisoned in any human form of expression but claims the sovereign right to make its own impact upon every people and to create its own forms of expression."

Today our whole Christian missionary enterprise is under attack. It is challenged by nationalism, by resurgent non-Christian religions, by the reassertion of local cultures againts Europeanisation, by those who seek to combine what is "good" in all religions, and by a failure of nerve, a loss of missionary concern, in the older and former "sending" churches.

[7] This should neither surprise us nor cause us to lose heart. It must, however, lead us to reassess our tasks--and as we do so let us thank God for the challenge which compels us to do this. We need, in a new measure, endurance so that we may hold fast to the essentials of the Gospel. We need the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit so that we may set our house in order. We need to clear away the junk which clutters our life.

In this sense our very critics can be used by God. "Must we not learn from the wild attacks of the Communists that we have obscured the prophetic message of social justice; from the criticism of the internationalists that we have given an individualistic rather than a truly cosmic and universal interpretation of Christianity; from the ironical comments of the advocates of tolerance that we have often been arrogant, rather than humble, in our proclamation of the Lord whom we have not chosen, but who has chosen us?"

To all the scandals we have added to the Gospel we cannot in these days afford to add or compound unessential scandals. Chief among these is the disunity of the Church. There is no room and no time left for competition. The time has come for joint planning, for joint action for mission. I here solemnly issue an invitation to every other Christian body in Fiji and in my Diocese as a whole to seek with us ways in which we may work together as we seek to grow together.

Finally, we must get rid of all "foreign-ness" about our Church life "which obscures our witness and makes it easy for the world to dismiss us as a cultural invasion from elsewhere."

If we are to do these things then we must realize that we are not here to defend a point of view--indeed we have nothing to defend except the right to bring the Gospel to all men, and that cannot be defended by power, [7/8] by prestige, nor by money--but only by the inherent power of the Lord and His message.

Let us together pledge ourselves to leave the past and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead, go straight for the goal--our calling in Christ.

Amen.

CHARGE DELIVERED to the FOURTEENTH SYNOD of the DIOCESE of POLYNESIA

by

The Right Reverend John Charles Vockler, O.G.S.,
Lord Bishop of the Diocese.

Brethren in Christ,

It is my joy and privelege to bid you welcome to this fourteenth meeting of the Synod of the Diocese. I believe that at this point we stand at the crossroads in our history and I pray that we may all be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as he speaks to the Church and the world in these challenging days, and that we may seek His will for the Diocese of which he has made us all members.

Since our last meeting I have to record the following changes in the Episcopate of the Province:--

The Right Reverend Sidney Gething Caulton, who, after his resignation of the See of Melanesia, was from 1955 Assistant Bishop to the Bishop of Auckland, has retired.

On St. Andrew's Day, 1963 The Hon. and Reverend Leonard Alufurai and The Revd. Dudley Tuti, were consecrated Bishops in the Church of God to serve as Assistants to The Bishop of Melanesia. This was a great day in the history of the Pacific Churches and I was delighted that our Diocese could be properly represented at it. May God richly bless these two bishops. We have already welcomed Bishop Alufurai here when he accompanied his Diocesan in March of this year--a most happy [9/10] occasion for us all. You will all rejoice with me that recently in recognition of his outstanding work in The Executive and Legislative Councils of The British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Her Majesty the Queen was pleased to honour Bishop Alufurai by conferring upon him the dignity of an Officer of The Most Excellent Order of The British Empire. We look forward to welcoming Bishop Tut to our diocese in the near future.

The Right Reverend Francis Oag Hulme-Moir, Bishop of Nelson, has recently indicated his intention of resigning his see and early in 1965 returning to Australia to become a Coadjutor Bishop in the Diocese of Sydney and Dean of Sydney. He has been a good friend of this Diocese, an able and temperate advisor to his brother bishops and an example in charity, Christian tolerance, and missionary vision. May God bless him in his new responsibilities and use him mightily. I ask you to remember in your prayers those charged with the responsibility of electing a new bishop for the Diocese of Nelson.

On July 25th, 1963, The Right Reverend Leonard Stanley Kerpthorne, retired Bishop of this Diocese, passed to his rest. In a special issue of the Gazette tribute was paid to his life and work which I do not intend to repeat here. For forty years he was Bishop of this Diocese, and was so during the difficult years of depression and war. At almost every stage of his episcopate he was beset by shortages of staff, meagre financial provision, and by misunderstandings. In the face of these trials he remained cheerful. His humility and gentleness are an example to us all. He laid many solid foundations upon which we will continue to build for years to come. We thank God for his life and witness.

Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. Amen.

[11] In our staff we have to record the following changes:

Departures:

1. The Rev'd Walter Wade Robinson who had been a member of the staff of the Diocese for ten years and who had done valuable work in several parts of the Diocese, but notably at Labasa left us in 1962 to return to the Diocese of Christchurch. His counsels in Standing Committee, his building up of the evangelistic work at Labasa, and his concern for the Church's impact on the world, have all left their mark. We here, in Polynesia, rejoice that he has been appointed General Secretary of The New Zealand Board of Missions. In that post we wish him well and assure him of our prayerful co-operation. We extend to The Reverend C. W. Haskell, the retired secretary, our prayerful good wishes for his new work in New Zealand.

2. The Rev'd Percy Burns has resigned as Vicar of Labasa and Priest Evangelist and has done so in response to a sense of vocation for work elsewhere. His going from us is a real loss. Patient, quiet, humble, Percy Burns sought, under God, to be a reconciler and there can be no more moving tribute to his work than that of a simple old man who said to me "Father Burns loves us."

3. Mr. G.I. Evans, who was for two years Diocesan Secretary and Bishop's Registar, and for part of the time Editor of the Gazette has resigned and returned to England, where we wish him well.

Before we meet again, The Rev'd J. A. and Mrs. Pittman will have left us to return to parish work in New Zealand. It is hard to find adequate words to speak of the work they have both done. It would be idle to pretend that Father Pittman and I have always agreed on [11/12] every subject, but that is neither to be expected nor desired. What does matter I think is the example of loyal obedience which he sets in so many ways to us all. The Dean of Boston in the most recent "Gazette" has described John Pittman as the miracle man of modern theological education. It is indeed remarkable to see what has happened since I first saw St. John's House, when as Bishop Coadjutor of Adelaide I passed through Suva in 1961. Father Pittman has been ably supported by his wife whose voluntary service has contributed to the efficient running of the college and the well-being of the students. We wish you both every happiness in the future, and you know, I hope, that you leave us with our prayers, our thanks, and our blessings.

To the Rev'd Jabez Leslie Bryce, who since last Synod has completed his L.Th., I have granted three years leave of absence so that he may take advantage of the generous scholarship provided for him at St. Andrew's Seminary, Manila, by the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. We wish him well in his studies, and we look forward to his return as a qualified member of staff for our theological college.

Arrivals:

The Rev'd I. and Mrs. Trevor, The Rev'd W. A. Porter, The Rev'd Peter and Mrs. Rynd, The Rev'd E.A. and Mrs. Bradley, The Rev'd B. and Mrs. Hatherly, The Rev'd P. and Mrs. Wellock, Mr. and Mrs. K. Taylor, and Maikali Padua and Anna are all new members of staff since our last Synod. We welcome them at this time and hope that in their work they will find abundant opportunities of service to others for Christ's sake. Mr. R. B Ackland, my valued advisor, has become a full-time member of our staff, for which I personally thank God.

V. S. O.'s:

During the period under review we have been encouraged by the voluntary service of several people [12/13] who have contributed their own enthusiasm to our work. Humphrey Armstrong, Beverley Jackson, Garry Higgins, and Kennedy Ihaka Kimmiwakawakaruru have all left their work. Noel Ashton and Alison Atkins are still with us. We thank God for their life and witness. This scheme has had one great disappointment for me which has led to the restriction of the scheme for 1955. In theory these young people who come voluntarily to us, without salary, should find a free welcome into some home here, without cost. With the exception of Tonga and spasmodically in one case in Labasa, this has not happened. It grieves me that so many of my people are prepared to accept the sacrifices of others, and make none in return.

Our most notable volunteer has been The Very Rev'd Dr. Charles Buck, Dean of Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., who has been a visiting lecturer at St. John's College and a breath of fresh air to us all. I am grateful to the Bishop of Massachusetts, the Cathedral Chapter of Boston, and the National Council of P.E.C.U.S.A., all of whom helped to make this possible. 1 hope that this visit of Dr. Buck, and the present visit of Mr. Val Brown of the Australian G.B.R.E., whom we welcome to this Synod, will be the first of many valuable exchanges between this Diocese and the wider world.

It is once again a real privilege to welcome to our midst the Rev'd O. J. Matthews who has voluntarily come to spend his leave with us and has given assistance at Labasa. We wish him a safe return to New Zealand and every blessing in his new parochial ministry.

The list of the official acts of the Bishop of the Diocese is before you, and I do not intend to repeat them here.

Since last we met, the following servants of God, have died:--

Sekitoa Pelaki, a teacher with a long record of [13/14] service in St. Andrew's School, Tonga, died suddenly in Suva in January, 1963;

Donald Fullerton Wooley, soon after his Confirmation and in full faith. His quiet witness has left a gap in our midst;

Lilian Allcock, after a long illness in which she displayed fortitude and patience;

Tragically and suddenly in Australia Valerie Johnson whose gentleness was one of the things noticed by so many in Fiji. She was gracious and good, a faithful and regular communicant, and a woman of wide compassion whose personal concern is directly responsible for the Kadavulevu Dependants' Fund.

James Sarju Prasad, whom I confirmed in hospital and who rejoiced in the new found life in Christ which was his;

Setaita, aged 13, who was, for a time, Secretary of the Youth Group, at St. Matthew's, Samabula;

L. Lakaivi, an elder of our Church in Tonga;

Andrew Simione, of Wailoku, who was blackbirded to Queensland and came here with the indentured labourers and whose life was characterised by faithful witness, quiet service, and gentle holiness;

Malakai, a faithful lay reader at Naviavia. A gentle man full of good works, and patient under long suffering.

I also record, with regret, the following deaths of people associated with the Diocese:

Dr. Nelson Ford, for long years Secretary of the Polynesian Diocesan Association in England;

Fr. Moren, pioneer of our work in Western Samoa, and later a missionary in New Guinea;

[15] The Rev'd R. A. Donne, Vicar of Suva from 1945-1948;

Miss Irene Cobb, who came to Labasa in 1923 and served there until 1935, and to whom St. Mary's School owes so much;

Mr. Clive Elliott, a former member of this Synod for Viti Levu West;

And, Mr. William E. Lindsay, who did so much to make possible the building of St. Peter's Church, Lautoka.

Finally, Dr. Godfrey Hill, who died a short time ago at an advanced age. He was a member of the first Diocesan Council, elected the first Conference in this Diocese in 1924 which established synodical Government.

We commend their souls to Almighty God, praying that He will, of His mercy grant unto them eternal rest and peace.

It is appropriate that I should mention here our rejoicing at the election of The Most Rev'd. P. N. W. Strong as Archbishop of Brisbane after such long and distinguished service in New Guinea and in the Councils of the South Pacific Church; our delight at the profession of Sister Clare Masina in the Community of The Sacred Name, New Zealand, and the assurance of our prayers as Thelma Houng Lee goes to the Community to test her vocation.

We owe a debt of gratitude to The Ven. W. S. Southward of Dunedin, who has represented us in General Synod from 1948 until 1961; to Canon Witley of Christchurch, for so long Chairman of our Committee in Christchurch; and to Mr. B.E.V. Parham, recently retired as Director of Agriculture in Western Samoa, who in several parts of the Diocese has given notable service. [15/16] Finally, in this long list we are very pleased to have in our midst at this time Fr. Day from Dunedin, who has raised considerable sums of money for school and theological college bursaries in this Diocese.

What I have now to say to you proceeds from a sense of urgency born of my overseas tour last year, and especially of my experiences at The Anglican Congress at Toronto, in Canada. I firmly believe that this congress marks a turning point in the history of our Anglican Communion, and our response to its challenges can work a turning point in the history of this Diocese. It is my firm conviction that the message of the Congress and especially the document "Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ" are ways in which the Spirit of God is speaking to our Anglican Churches. I do not yet see that many of you realise sufficiently the radical nature of the revolution which is called for if we are to be faithful to its challenges and if we are to take up the responsibilities it lays upon us.

It is a mistake to suggest, as has been done, that it all depends upon the Bishops. It does not. We can lead, suggest and guide, but if we are to move forward then in every congregation and in the life of every vestry, Church Committee, organization, and in the life of every ordained Minister there must be searching self-examination, radical reform, new dedication, and a deepened sense of holiness born of converse with God. To these things I dedicate myself. To these things I call you all. "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily drag us back," and let us, "looking unto Jesus," go forth in faith and courage to the future.

The Message of Toronto calls us to consider our vocation as Christians in five ways. This challenge rests upon the Scriptural conviction that "the Church that lives to itself will die by itself." There is no escape from this inevitable law of the Spirit. We are members one of another, sharers in the life of Christ, and fellowship of [16/17] this kind demands an outreach in love and concern.

Therefore, we are called first of all to be a serving church. Just as our Blessed Lord was pre-eminently a servant so too must we seek service in the world for which Christ died and which God loves. The Church cannot be understood simply and solely in tennis of its specifically religious activities. There is no area of life in which we are not called to witness and to serve. What is your local congregation doing in this regard? Is the Church for you just a building where you worship on Sundays and week-days? Is the Church to which you belong, locally, simply existing to perpetuate and preserve itself? In some cases, I fear, the answer must be yes. I must warn you all, as I warn myself and the Diocese as a whole, that this is the way of death, and unless we allow God to stir us and reform us we are in very grave peril indeed. Every congregation must seek avenues of service outside of its own local interests and, together, we must seek avenues of service in the wider world. It is in this connection I commend most earnestly to you all the suggestion which will come before us that we should seek to help the Holy Catholic Church in Japan, and I hope that the visit in 1965 of The Most Reverend Michael Yashiro, Primate of Japan, will spur us on in this regard. For too long this Diocese has taken everything and given little. There are signs of change--but I say to you all "Wake up! It's much later than you think." Of course we still need to receive and I am not ashamed to ask for that help. But we need for our own health and for the love of the brethren to give, "There is no Church so old that it has nothing to learn, and there is no Church so young that it has nothing to give." The test here is what we spend on ourselves and what we give to others. Does your support of the work of God in the world and the Diocese cost you anything? I ask you all, clergy and laity alike, what are you sacrificing for God? I ask myself the same question, too, and I find it profoundly disturbing.

[18] We do not serve simply by doing what Jesus asks us to do--not even by a faithful proclamation of the Gospel, primary as that is. Above all, we serve by being what Jesus was. People were attracted to Him by His life, by Himself, and so we are called to be such a fellowship as shall reveal Him. This we can only do at the local level. Essentially we are called to holiness, and that will inform and direct our service. At Bangkok, in. February of this year, the Assembly of the East Asia Christian Conference stressed this note. This call to holiness is a call to respond to God who is The Holy One. "For us, who are Christians, the call to holy living is a call to follow Jesus who is our pattern, to abide in Jesus who is the source of our life and the ground of its being, and to belong to Him who is both our Lord and Saviour and to keep company with Him in His life and mission to the world . . . . The Christian life means both being moulded by Jesus Christ and being used by Him in His service. It is a life to be received as well as a life to be lived." Christ-like holiness involves two equally vital things. It means finding time to withdraw, as Christ did, in prayer and sacrament so that we may receive the life of God. Here we all need to examine ourselves, to repent, to amend, and to rise up in newness of life--His abundant life. It also involves, "a total commitment to participation in God's purposes in the world." To neglect the first is to turn the Church into a ghetto, an isolated, irrelevant body. To neglect the second is to produce a distasteful respectability--a holier than thou attitude. To accept the call is to accept a necessary austerity, a disciplined pattern of life, and a steadfast adherence to priorities. The claims of the divine mission must come first and we must judge all other claims by that, and our concern for others must regulate and determine our concern for ourselves.

Secondly, we are called to be a listening Church. "Anglicans, like other people, have no monopoly of God's [18/19] truth." Nor does the Church, narrowly understood, have such a monopoly. If we are to serve, we must listen. We do not commend Christ by talking at people, nor by answering questions which no one is asking. We fail if we seek to teach only what we, especialy we "professionals," think is good for others to know. Teaching which does not move along "the knife edge of experience" will neither convert nor sanctify. We need to listen to God. Especialy do we need a greater seriousness, here in this Diocese, about Bible reading and Bible study. God speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures and to neglect them is to make certain our spiritual stagnation. Unless we listen we cannot obey. If we listen truly then we will develop a willingness to learn. We need to listen to the world and to other religions. The lapsed cannot be restored from their indifference nor the non-Christian brought to Christ by people who are in a vacuum. We must take an intelligent interest in what attracts and interests others. For too many of us, myself included, our interests are too narrowly defined. A necessary part of evangelism is to go where people are, to do so without any axes to grind. We need to listen to our fellow Christians. We do not need to defend in voices shrill with fear our heritage nor to stand splendidly, and in isolation, on our dignity. We can all learn from one another and we all need to do so. Above all, to listen effectively demands reliance upon God. This is God's world. His purpose will be achieved, not ours. It is our privilege to be the agents of His mission in His world.

Thirdly, we reaffirmed at Toronto that we are called to be One Church. "Anglicans cannot live in isolation from other Christians." Nor, may I humbly say, can other Christians live in isolation from us. I pledge myself and I call upon this Synod and this Diocese to pledge itself to the Toronto affirmation that "we intend to work far more closely with our fellow-Christians of other Communions, both at home and throughout the world." This is a subject to which I will return directly.

[20] Fourthly, God has called us to affirm the unity of the human race. In many parts of the world racial conflict has marred the life of the Church and of society. I have myself witnessed at first hand the evil effects of segregation and of apartheid. Here in the Pacific we have much to be thankful for and in this Diocese we have in our multi-national character a potential offering to make to others. But Nye have no grounds for complacence, for we still have a long way to go. There are in our midst social and conventional barriers which have not been broken down by the Gospel, There are social institutions which do not yet reflect the true character of our society, and it is my own firm conv ction, despite all the obvious difficulties and the even more obvious prejudices, that racially distinct schools are a barrier and a hindrance to the developement of maturity in our relationships between men of goodwill. We cannot expect as adults to overcome what separation during out most formative years almost inevitably achieves. So far as the Diocese itself is concerned, I repeat again what I have said since first you called me to come to you. The toleration of multi-racial worship is not enough. If the Church is to be the Church in the world, the quality of our Christian profession will be tested in our homes. The acid test is our willingness to break bread together. I know that there are difficulties and my present and former domestic chaplains will testify to the difficulties from their side. Nevertheless I rejoice that for me Bishop's House is a meeting place for all people and I thank God for what I have learned from my people who come there.

The problem of bad race relationships is, I believe one of the most serious in our modern age--even more dreadful in its possibilities than the population explosion or the possibility of nuclear warfare, or the East-West confrontation of the major powers. The Church cannot escape from a share of the blame. In an interview on the B.B.C. with two African leaders one of those leaders had this to say: "The image of Christianity in Africa has been tainted [20/21] by the inability of Christians to live up to what they have preached. There are exceptions, like Fr. Huddleston and Bishop Reeves and soon, but generally these people who preach Christianity have gone back in the evening to live in the select residential areas of the Europeans, they have gone back in some areas to worship in white churches, they have sent their children to white schools, they have gone to reserved European hotels and train accommodation." The former Archbishop of Capetown writing in the "Living Church" in October, 1961 said, "Had the Church never compromised on racial discrimination, our people would never have been conditioned to accept and adopt the pattern of a discriminating society." He went on to say something which, in part, has a message for us here in Fiji when we think of our minorities who do not yet possess the right to vote. "Let each human receive the honour due to a child of God, and let there be no discrimination between brother and brother--not in regard to his vote, nor in his right to work, nor to learn, nor to live in any house or street. Are not these the simple rights of reasonible citizenship we all acknowledge and consider fundamental to the ordering of a civilised society?" We cannot condemn in others what we practice in our own lives. Our first task is to make sure that in our own congregations there remains no vestige of this evil. Let us remember, too, that patronage and the appearance of a supposed superiority are signs of such an evil. Only a loving recognition of one another as brothers, as equals in the sight of God, can fulfil the Divine demands. If you think that I exaggerate here, may I remind you that in April 1961 a responsible newspaper circulating in the Pacific printed an article on drinking in New Guinea which contained these inexcusably offensive words: "In the murk and the tobacco smoke, black faces loomed up like something peering out of a jungle many of them act like animals, who have not been house-broken." It seems almost absurd to have to point out that this description seems familiary like cities in Australia and New Zealand on pay night.

[22] Fifthly, God has called us all, Clergy and Laity together. One of the great elements in the many movements of thought which are seeking to bring new life to the Church is the rediscovery of the Laity. We have not yet made that discovery in any significant way in the Diocese of Polynesia. I have been asked by some members of staff to make possible the training of the laity for evangelism. Next year is the year originally designed for this purpose in our three-year plan for spiritual advance. That plan was supported enthusiastically by the last Synod. It has not however been taken up in every place, and in very few places has it been given real priority in the life of the local church. If we are to train our people for evangelism two things should be self-evident.

(1) That so important is this work that it cannot be added to an already crowded, conventional programme. It must take priority and room must be made for it to be carried out;

and (2) We, paid members of the staff, cannot expect to commend evangelism to the laity as a top priority unless it is obviously top priority in our own life, work and teaching.

At my first Synod and often since, I have urged the necessity of developing in every place responsible lay participation in decision making and in the planning of work. Some of the amendments to our legislation before us at this session are aimed at making my urgings effective.

I will provide for the staff in every place material which I and my advisers firmly believe is more than adequate, if it is adopted to local circumstances, for equipping our laity for their Christian life and witness in the world for the task of evangelism. I lay upon my staff as a matter of obedience, not to me, but to the call of God expressed at Toronto, that they will find effective ways of using this material, and I invite us all Bishop, priests, and [22/23] lay people everywhere to give ourselves afresh to God that he may use us together in the day to day life of the Church and in the mission of the Church in our Island world.

It is in the light of these priorities that we must weigh carefully what the document "Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ" says to us. The words simply remind us that we are bound together. No one of us can live to himself nor by himself. No one of us can be a receiver and not a giver. We have responsibilities outside ourselves, outside the local Church, outside the Province, and outside the Anglican Communion. We depend upon one another and are linked together. We can only go forward together.

You will be asked at this Synod to endorse and accept- this document. I hope you will do this, but only after the most careful consideration of what it involves and with the clear knowledge that each of you will be committed to seeking ways in which it can be made alive in your parish or district. We need to heed the warning of Bishop Stephen Bayne: "If the Church is to be organized around mission, it means that mission must be in the centre of its structure--the primary thing in its budget, the first claim upon its manpower and its time. The most frightening thing about the Church in our time is not its lack of prophetic passion--it is its feeling that mission is an option."

The document makes it clear that as a long-term process we must assess realistically in each place the resources of the diocese and its needs as part of an Anglicanwide survey. Your new Standing Committee will be charged with that responsibility. But, even whilst that is going on we will have to meet urgent needs in every part of our Communion. Our own needs here have been listed as part of this programme and have already met with a ready response. The American and Canadian Churches are to provide us with staff and resources for theological education. The American Church is seeking to meet some of [23/24] the needs of our Solomon Islanders for education and medical care through the provision of transport in the Melanesian Mission. The General Synod of the Province has undertaken to raise an additional £100,000 over five years for the M.R.I. appeal, £25,000 of which is for this Diocese. I hope we will all try to share in this and as an earnest of that hope I have already pledged 1% of my income, over and above my present almsgiving, to this purpose.

But Mutual Responsibility does NOT mean more money and manpower for Polynesia. It is a call to obedience, to new dedication. We begin our response to these proposals where we are, and as we are, in all our weakness and frailty, but with faith and hope. There is no other way. As the presentation of our needs to others becomes a giving of ourselves in love, and as we seek ways in which to give, then the pilgrimage of mutual responsibility will begin. When we see that the problems of all are the problems of each then interdependence will become a reality. What are you doing in your local congregation to learn the needs of the wider Church? Obedience to these proposals demands wise planning and generous sacrificial giving. Our full Communion with one another as Anglicans needs to be made clear outwardly by our common concern and our common obedience. I hope that as we accept in Synod the policy statements made by the South Pacific Anglican Council meeting at Honiara last December we will see how they fit into this wider plan and challenge us to radical rethinking--indeed to revolution.

I hope that this Synod will direct Standing Committee to investigate ways and means of our sharing in the supply of the needs of others. We cannot wait to do this until our own needs are all met.

At the same time I want to emphasise my conviction that Mutual Responsibility will fail of its purpose until the "older" churches have so articulated their needs as to awaken a response from us.

[25] The document reminds us of the absolute shortage of priests in our Communion. Here, as I see it, is a way that we can help. We have no shortage of young men willing to serve God, indeed more than we ourselves need. I hope that we can train men not for the Diocese of Polynesia, but for the Church of God and that we can offer them to needy provinces for long and short terms of service. If we are to do this I believe that Synod must, by endorsing such a policy, support me in this hope.

The root of all this lies in the challenge radically to study the form of our obedience to mission and our need to share in the single life and witness of our Church everywhere.

At the Staff Conference after Synod, I will endeavour to explore what mutual responsibility means as it concerns the relationship of the Bishop and his fellow workers. I will soon send to every priest and to every vestry and council material aimed at helping you to engage in this examination of obedience. I ask that in every parish every priest and every organization will find time to do this and to seek council for the action which must result.

Standing Committee will need to review its functions in the life of the Diocese and if we are to be faithful we need to see that all of this worldwide ferment concerns Polynesia as much as anywhere else. We too must put the primary objectives of others before our own secondary needs. We must pass within the diocese and outside it from an attitude of dependence to adult and responsible relationships. This means that everywhere there must be mutual planning and not even a semblance of individual autocracy. This applies to my own office and function--and it applies to everyone of you. We must seek ways of sharing manpower and financial resources, and we must establish living and vital relationship within and outside the Diocese. How many of you know anything about or really care for our Western Samoan or Tongan congregations--or what do the people there really know of our problems here in Fiji? Do [25/26] we need in addition to our Gazette some occasional paper wholly for internal consumption? The kind of planning envisaged in all this involves real heart searching so that we may discover our vocation in relation to others. At the moment we bear no share in the Budget of the Province nor in the central budget of the Executive Officer. Is this right? Should we allow it to continue?

I hope that we will all study the document afresh, especially Section III which sets before us a programme of action, and I hope that Synod will, if it accepts the document, instruct Standing Committee to implement the programme.

How are we to assess our priorities?

Certainly not by producing a new blueprint for action as if that by itself will solve all our problems. The Diocese is providing for each member of the staff a copy of a booklet "Mutual Responsibility: Questions and Answers" and I commend it to you for study in your thinking and planning.

If we are to plan aright we need above all repentance for our past failures and prayer for guidance and obedience. These must happen in every place and at every level of our life. We need more definite teaching about mission as an imperative laid upon us by God. We must face realistically and seek to convert the dead weight we carry in the shape of people who see no compulsion to be evangelists. Above all we need commitment, not to a task, but to God who calls us and will enable us.

The fixed engagements of the Clergy and Staff need radical re-examination. Is our life too cluttered to make advance possible? Are we doing what we have always done, because it fills in the time and saves us from the agony of re-appraisal? If we are to rise to the demands for a new scale of sacrifice in prayer, in time, in service, and in talents and money, this cannot be "fitted on" to an existing [26/27] programme designed for quite other purposes. As the document itself reminds us: "We are aware that such a programme as we propose will mean the death of much that is familiar about our Churches now. It will mean radical change in our priorities--even leading us to share with others at least as much as we spend on ourselves. It means the death of old isolations and inherited attitudes. It means a willingness to forego many desirable things in every Church.

In substance what we are really asking for is the re-birth of the Anglican Communion, which means the death of many old things but--infinitely more--the birth of entirely new relationships. We regard this as the essential task before the Churches of the Anglican Communion now.”

This involves a reversal of the old roles and brings to Dioceses like Polynesia a new freedom and a new dignity. We are not to act like beggars going to a corporate charitable society. We must ask first what do we need to give? Where do we need to be involved? This is indeed a revolution.

In seeking to play our proper share in this revolution we can find in Howard Johnson's book "Global Odyssey" many of the questions which we in Polynesia need to be asking ourselves.

To what extent does the Anglican expression of Christianity in this Diocese reflect in organization, structure, and worship a purely English outlook? To what extent is the parochial system unsuited to our needs and responsibilities? What of local music and decoration? To what extent is the work of our theological college oriented towards purely Western ideals and aims? Is the Diocese too heavily committed to institutions we cannot afford to support? To [27/28] what extent are we encouraging our people in responsible decision making? To what extent are we moving towards self-support? Is some of our work and are some of our methods pauperising our people? Are we facing the facts that "most of God's world is not Christian, not white" and not Anglican? Dr. Johnson sees as urgent priorities the raising of our standards of preaching and teaching, the spread of knowledge about our Communion to combat isolation and ignorance. He believes we are far too short sighted in our planning. He emphasises that "the Church doesn't have missions; it is Mission." He points to the fact that our dioceses are too big so that effective episcopal oversight is a fiction.

To these questions, all of which concern us and to which you must seek answers at the local level, I would add these which have been suggested to the Canadian Church by the Primate's Committee on World Mission.

Are we confusing activity with action, doing much and accomplishing little? If so, we need in every place an order of priorities. We cannot do everything at once.

Are we wasting our resources? We need at diocesan and parish level a stewardship of spending.

Are we using our available manpower wisely? We need a stewardship of manpower, and I am pledged in 1965 to a redistribution of staff motivated by this need.

Are our laity effectively used or are they largely unemployed or wastefully employed? Is too much being asked of too few? Responsibility is only realized as it is exercised. We need to share more fully the mission of the Church with the laity.

Do our people realize that the first call on their resources is the support of the living agent--their priest? [28/29] Unless our Annual Meetings are clearly shown the extent to which diocesan funds assist local resources they will never be challenged to meet their obligations. The wastage of the priest's time in book-keeping is an area which demands the training of our lay people in several parts of the Diocese.

The question posed at the recent East Asian Christian Conference's Situation Conferences also needs our attention:

What are the positions at the frontier of mission which must he held at all costs?

What are the growing edges of the Church's work and witness which must be encouraged and supported?

Are there things which the Churches have been doing which should now be given up (a) because they are out of date (b) because they are unproductive (c) because they are wasteful of resources, men, and money?

Are there activities of the Churches which need to be handed over to other agencies, and, if so, what are they?

What are the new tasks to be undertaken?

In what way can the overall task be thought out and carried out together by the total people of God in each area?

What are the implications as we face these issues of our denominational separateness from one another and our involvement in our respective families?

What are the particular relationships and forms of administrative organisation by which the Churches can [29/30] better fulfil together the calling to do together both the old things that should go on and the new things that await our doing in our time?

I hope you all find in these questions as I do both a profound disturbance of heart and mind and a new awareness of our inability to do anything apart from the grace and strength which God supplies.

These last questions remind us of the ecumenical movement which is great a challenge to us all. I rejoice as I am sure you all do, that here with us to-day are representatives of our separated Brethren who came to bring us greetings. In your name, I bid them welcome for Christ's sake and I pray that this is an earnest of a closer fellowship in the years ahead. Unity and mission are inextricably bound up together in the will of God. We must all face honestly the barrier which our disunity creates to evangelism and the sad tragedy that in several parts of the Pacific the only thing which divides an otherwise homogeneous people is their allegiance to separate Christian denominations.

But there are signs of change. The movements in Tonga and Samoa for a common Bible, the growth of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, our procession of witness in Suva--for all these we thank God.

We thank God, too, for the wonderful spirit shed abroad by the late Pope John and his successor, and for the new life engendered by the Vatican Council. Here in the Diocese we are glad to have outward signs of our Christian fellowship in the painting given to our theological college by His Holiness the Pope, by the books presented by the Obispo Maximo of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and we look forward to the ikon promised to us by the Orthodox Churches.

[31] I hope that we shall see an increasing dialogue between us all so that we may meet to know one another and learn to love one another. There are before Synod opportunities of increasing our participation in fellowship with our Brother Christians through the proposed Pacific Council of Churches, the proposed Fiji Council of Churches, and the Pacific Theological College. I trust you will give most careful consideration to them all. The work of the Christian Education Curriculum Committee which is seeking to produce educational materials for all non-Roman Catholic denominations in our area is a significant step forward which I trust we will both welcome and support.

Archbishop Heenan of Westminster said at the recent session of the Vatican Council: "We declare that we are prepared to do anything, outside of denying the faith, to obtain the union of Christians. We desire fuller and more frequent dialogues with all Christian denominations." Those are exactly my own sentiments and I long for the day when we shall see here amongst us all an end to old prejudices and suspicions, and a real desire to meet, to learn, and to grow together as we seeks ways of working together.

We are entering a new era in inter-church relationships.

We are seeing clearly the sin of disunity as sin, and we are, I believe, also seeing that unity does not mean uniformity. The lay people of our Communions are beginning to be concerned about our divisions. The more frequent meeting of church leaders opens a way to reconciliation, but there remains the problem of how divided congregations may meet. I hope we will explore ways of achieving this desirable end.

We as a Diocese have a new responsibility in this matter, for the recent General Synod of our Province in deciding to enter into unity conversations in New Zealand [31/32] realised the peculiar problems of the Dioceses of Melanesia and Polynesia and gave us permission to explore the paths to unity in our own geographical areas. The matter is also connected with the development of the South Pacific Anglican Council and the quickening movement towards a Pacific Province. I believe that in many ways we Islanders are behind the times in this matter and that we do not really appreciate yet the urgency nor the problems of unity. Our separation has been so radical and our coming together so new that we have yet to get to know one another. We will all rejoice at the recent autonomy of the Methodist Churches in Fiji and Samoa and of the Tahitian Church and hope that this will lead to a deeper ecumenical dialogue for us all.

In this context we may well ask, what is the peculiar vocation of Anglicanism in these Islands? In my judgment it is not to be aggressively Anglican nor to concentrate on building up the Diocese of Polynesia for its own sake. It is of course inevitable that we should grow and develop, but I hope we will not try to do this outside of the context of the ecumenical movement.

Certainly my title of Bishop in Polynesia can be seen to have a new meaning. It can, under God bring me as your leader to a new level of ecumenical involvement with my brother bishops of the Roman Communion and with the leaders of other Christian denominations, and so cease to have merely a vast geographical significance. We may well be being called to develop a new concept of our Anglican endeavours in these islands as a presence while we look forward to in hope and prayer a united church. In this sense we would see ourselves as contributing one factor, an important factor, yes, but only one factor of a whole.

If this is so, then we have no room for patronage, aloofness, nor isolation. We are not here to proselytise, but, under God, to share with others our tradition of discipline, [32/33] order, worship, and sound learning. We can only do that if we bring all of them continually under the judgment of God, and seek His will for us all. This will demand from us constant reformation.

We have much to give, but we cannot give it unless we value and develop it ourselves. We have in the words of Stephen Bayne: "all that rich marriage of institution and spirit, of word and sacrament, of freedom and discipline."

Father Porter who has acted as convenor of my committee on Church Unity has adequately summarised our gifts and I set them forth with some comments of my own.

We have (a) the traditional Catholic ministry of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon. But if we are to commend this to others we need radically to correct the image of my own office through a diffusion of responsibility in fact as well as in theory, so that I do not continue to appear as and be forced to act as a "one man band." Nor, I think, do we need by the title "My Lord" to convey a false impression to others. The Book of Common Prayer addresses Bishops as "Right Reverend Father"--does it not express the right ideal?

(b) the integration of the insights of the Reformation with the ancient body of Catholic theology, life, and practice. Let us not lose this by stressing either side of this necessary balance to the exclusion of the other.

(c) the fullness of corporate worship.

(d) the ideal of a pastoral church that really loves and cares for her people.

(e) an example of racial integration and harmony.

But the Church and the denominations work in the world--a world beset by grave problems. We cannot ignore these [33/34] issues because Christ's compassion reaches out to men involved in them. We dare not ignore them because they make, humanly speaking, the context within which we work.

I have already referred to the problem of race. I direct your thoughts for a moment to those caused by the population explosion and the inevitable consequences, without radical governmental action, in terms of hunger and poverty.

The United Nations estimates that the population of the world is being increased every hour by 5,000 persons, or 44,000,000 a year. Most of this is happening in underdeveloped countries where there is not the education, capital, skill, or management to utilise and adequately develop national resources. Such human factors as ignorance, apathy, greed, strife, and a blind adherence to tradition are obstacle to growth. Over half the world's population is underfed. This problem must be faced, and as we think of development in the Pacific, it must be faced here. If the standard of life and health are to be improved, if we are not to lose what we have gained then several things are urgent and necessary.

They include the full development of our natural resources to produce more food for ourselves and for others. This cannot be done without hard work, and capital investment. In Western Samoa recently the Government Loan was over-subscribed and in achieving this goal there was over 60% participation by the villages of the country. Other countries and territories should learn from this. We will not have increased overseas aid forever. We must help ourselves.

It is heartening to see in Fiji and Tonga, and elsewhere, signs of increased economic activity. But there is no time to rest on our laurels. I personally feel a great responsibility in this because we are not using our own resources in land to the full. I have encouraged the Vestry in Tonga [34/35] to investigate ways and means of making the Church lands productive, I have been encouraged by what is beginning to happen at Wailoku, but I am still conscience-stricken that we are unable yet fully to develop our greatest asset, Natoavatu Estate, where Raymond Haynes works so faithfully and well for us.

In opening the Legislative Council of Fiji in November 1963 the Acting Governor made some remarks which were addressed to us in Fiji. They have a wider application in all of the islands and for all of the governments in my Diocese, and they apply to people of many races. "Fijian society has until now been to a considerable extent following a traditional pattern. It has been argued that in the latter part of the last century the Fijians chose to contract out of the basic economy of the Colony. But owning as they do the greater part of the land in this Colony, I suggest that the time has now arrived when they must contract into the Western economic system, even at the expense of an adjustment in their traditional way of life. There must, I suggest, be an opening up of more economic opportunity to the Fijian people on an individualist basis. Indeed, I believe that has already begun to be appreciated. Not only have I visual evidence of this from my own recent extensive travels throughout the Colony, but there is already evidence of a voluntary adaption to a Western style economy by the arrival on the scene of the galala farmer in progressively increasing numbers, as well as the urbanized wage-earning Fijian.

But, as I said in my Cession Day speech the other day, we are now entering a period of change and challenge. Agriculture is now to be transformed throughout much of the Colony from a traditional subsistence basis to one which produces for the market and I like to look upon our new fourth Development Plan as, to use Professor Rostow's vivid metaphor, a "take-off" into a new kind of economy--a "take-off" like an aircraft on the runway, [35/36] gathering sufficient momentum to leave the old limitations behind and operate in what is in fact a new economic sphere. We cannot cling to the methods of the past if we want to win the prizes of the future.

In my view, Fiji is to-day at a crucial stage of its economic development or, to use a current expression--a "New Frontier." Fiji can support its growing population under conditions of political and economic stability only if an imaginative, far-sighted Development Plan is vigorously prosecuted. Honourable Unofficial Members of this Council have participated in the preparation of the Plan, which has been approved by Executive Council after consideration of their comments and is now being sent to the Secretary of State for his approval, as is required. Now the Government and people of Fiji face the great challenge of its rapid and effective implementation. For no amount of planning--good, bad or indifferent--can ever come to life without the yeast of inspiration and public support."

Every area of the Diocese is caught up in change and faces great opportunities.

His Excellency went on, after outlining measures for development, to urge upon us the fact that development needs more than enthusiasm and an impatience for quick results; it needs hard thinking and restraint, patience and courage.

For the real problem of modern democracy is not to induce the voters to put a modest affluence first: it is to persuade them to accept some of the more uncomfortable policies needed to launch and finance it. This may be termed the age of the "break-through"; almost every week some new conquest is made in the field of science or technology. Our living standards will ultimately improve through subsequent connected research and development. But, however that may be, there is, as far as I know, no real substitute [36/37] for work as yet discovered. There is no fairy godmother who will provide funds which will give us social security and similar benifits. We can only obtain these by our own efforts; you cannot be given or buy a ticket to prosperity; you can only work your passage. So, in the words of President Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask rather what you can do for your country."

These are wise words for all my people and it is I think interesting that in Honiara in December 1963 I was present at the opening of The Legislative Council in The British Solomon Islands Protectorate and there heard the retiring High Commissioner, Sir David Trench, speak in these terms to the same effect: "The importance of the orderly development of active and efficient local governments in this Protectorate--or, indeed, in any democratic country--has been referred to in this Council before. A sound system of local government is, without any shadow of doubt, the essential basis of all good government. Our Councils are progressing reasonably well, but I urge them to remember that talk in meetings is not enough unless that talk is translated into intelligent action. The District Commissioners are always available to help and advise, but there is a tendency sometimes for Council members to forget that it is not the District Commissioner's function to do work for them, which they ought to be doing for themselves. The prestige and good name that a Council member gets does not come from mere membership of the Council: it comes from the work he actually does for the sake of his people."

In the same Council on December 6th the Hon. L. M. Davies in proposing the second reading of the 1964 Appropriation Bill, underlined these emphases in a telling way. "I cannot avoid repeating the point I have made before that it is what we produce and sell which will establish and set the standard of living which we can afford here. Production is all important. Whilst we may enjoy a [37/38] semi-privileged position so long as we cannot pay our way, we cannot continue to expect to receive grants from overseas indefinitely. One day we shall find ourselves left to finance our own services. It is dangerous to get into the attitude of mind that something will turn up or that next year will be a better one. It won't unless we work to produce more. Even then the demand for services will probably outstrip our supply of cash unless we discipline ourselves to the modern masters of supply and demand."

He went on to speak of the future in a way which is relevant to almost all our island territories as we face rapid changes. "I forecast that we shall gradually see the emergence of a rather different type of unskilled labourer in future years. Already there are some sketchy statistics to show that output per capita in some industries is rising. But as important as this, is that demand is changing. Employers are becoming increasingly selective. As wages rise they will become even more selective. Furthermore, new industry is going to set new standards. Labour will no doubt adjust itself to these requirements and those who do so quickest will benefit the most. I think we are entering an era in which increasingly those whose employment relies on a superabundance of brute force mixed with traditional ignorance will be replaced by those who stop to think before applying their weight."

In his concluding remarks Mr. Davies spoke a message we all need to hear. "What of the future?" he asked "On the expenditure side, apart from eternal vigilance we must cut out inefficiency and raise productivity. This is easier said than done. But in all walks of life, both public and private, it is the duty of management to achieve it. Too little attention has been given to this important aspect of our national life. Perhaps this is nobody's fault, I suppose the coconut is about the dullest and most unexciting unit of national [38/39] production imaginable: it cannot be said to stimulate inventiveness or to present a challenge. The nut falls off, is picked up, split open and dried, finish. It will take us time to establish rather different standards required by the development of other natural resources, but given sound management and, equally important, inspired leadership, we ought to be able to do better than we did in 1963. And may I interject here that management and leadership is as much in demand in services operated by civil servants as those in the private sector.

Apart from higher standards of management, we want more hard work from all sections of the community. It is no good asking the copra producer to pick up more nuts if we waste the increase which this gives us. Again the public service has a lead to give here. To use a modern idiom. "We must get with it". The developments going on around us ought to cause us all to search with a constructive approach to see what openings are developing. We cannot justify the import of broomsticks when we are sending out thousands of tons of logs.

The solvency of the Solomons is going to depend in the remainder of the century on the speed with which we come to terms with the world of change. There is no more dangerous illusion than the comfortable belief that the world owes us a living. We have been fortunate to benefit from liberal and generous grants and are still doing so. The first ripple of a tide bearing with it a balanced budget looks as if it is turning towards us. Do not let it be rebuffed on the beach. Let it flow up the estuary which is waiting for it and along the shores of which stand our natural resources, ready to give their harvest and all of us determined to give our labour."

I believe myself that the real raw material of economic development is people. Therefore education is vital to development.

[40] We face a threefold problem:

(a) how to bring the illiterate to a minimum level.

(b) how to raise the general standard of education.

(c) how to provide schools and teachers to educate our increasing numbers.

In one Pacific territory it is estimated that a population of 120,000 will by 1986 be one of 300,000 and that on the minimal basis of £1,500 invested capital being necessary to provide a job for a man, that territory needs to find by 1986 £40,000,000 of invested capital. If we seek to transfer these estimates to Fiji we will have some idea of the enormous problem.

It is at once clear that in areas like ours an improvement of living standards is impossible of achievement without some attempt to slow down the population growth. I hope that every effort will be made to support the work of Family Planning throughout the whole Diocese.

Not unrelated to this problem of population growth are the problems of housing and unemployment. Bad conditions in these areas breed disaffection and crime. I am happy that moves to deal realistically with housing in Suva are beginning to take shape. It is unrealistic to urge that if people returned to their villages in rural areas we would not have these problems. Urban development is a fact of twentieth century life which we must face. It is true, but irrelevant, to urge that housing is worse elsewhere. It is where we are that we have responsibility.

There is however one group in our society in Fiji which suffers adversely from the laws of the Colony in [40/41] respect of housing. I refer to the Solomon Islanders under my care. Without security in land they are often economically at a disadvantage compared with the Fijian people, yet greater stringency is exercised in the control of their housing than applies to the Fijians. I hope that Government will investigate and clarify this issue which was first raised by my predecessor in 1952.

Dr. Hemming in 1963 revealed the serious situation in Fiji's unemployment problem. The current boom based on sugar has done something to mitigate this. But we do not appear to be any nearer a permanent solution. The whole Colony looks eagerly to Government guidance and for practical and radical action.

Throughout the Diocese, since we last met, there has been increased constitutional change as various areas move towards greater local responsibility. In every place we will still need for a long time to come overseas civil servants. Increasingly we hope that they will act as fellow workers with the rest of us and not as controllers. In the Journal of The Polynesia Society for December 1962 Professor Cumberland, writing on "The Future of Polynesia," reminds us that "the Pacific is one of the few areas into which the Cold War has not yet penetrated. It will require positive thinking, a consistent policy and something better than passivity to maintain this situation." That thinking and that policy need to be worked out co-operatively by our societies as a whole. In many areas we are in danger because of two developments. In the first place the number of civil servants wholly given to paper work has increased out of all proportion and needs to be re-appraised. In the second place far too many civil servants who still have much to give to us all have lost faith in the future and speak too often and too loudly of "the golden handshake."

In the political sphere I welcome the appointment [41/42] of an Australia Commissioner resident in Fiji as an outward expression of Australia's concern for this area, and I would wish that the New Zealand Government could find it possible to follow the same course. Australia cannot escape responsibility for an area in which so much Australian capital is invested and where so many Australians are at work. Not the least which Australia and New Zealand could do to help us in the area covered by my Diocese is the development of some sort of co-ordinated Pacific "Colombo Plan."

I turn now to the business before us. In addition to those matters on which I have already commented I commend to your careful consideration the report on Education in the Diocese and the Report of the Liturgical Committee.

There can be no doubt that the Church has a peculiar role to play in education, nor in my own mind is there any doubt about our need for a secondary school for the whole diocese and on a highly selective basis. What Synod must decide is the extent to which our limited resources are to be applied to education, and to what extent and where expansion should take place.

The general desire for education in these islands is very great. I find myself at variance with those governments who are opposed to universal primary and free education. That primary education is the right of all I think is indisputable. The question to be asked is not can we afford it, but, rather, can we afford NOT to afford it. The cost of primary education could be reduced by a limit on the age at which people enter schools and a strict insistence on a leaving age. At the moment in many places people are spending ten years in primary school. This is a patent absurdity. What must, with regret, be admitted is that in our circumstances all children cannot be given nor can they benefit from secondary [42/43] education. This is made abundantly clear by the publication of the 1963 Fiji Junior Results--figures which could be paralleled in several other island territories. Of 1653 candidates, 54 got ‘A' grade passes and 939 failed.

Without education there can be no real development, without education people are left prey to ignorance and disease. Certain basic education is essential if we are to communicate new ideas on e.g. agriculture to the man of tomorrow in the villages of our islands. Too much effort is wasted justifying a policy based on the issue of cost. Let us ask is general education necessary? If it is, then let us find ways and means to provide it.

So far as Christian schools are concerned we need to examine our motives. Schools which serve pastoral needs we will always need. But schools which exist primarily as status symbols, to maintain privilege, to proselysize, or to seek power we ought not to have. In a developing country like this the Church must place itself at the service of the greatest good of the greatest number. If our schools really stand for something they will commend themselves. Equally, today, a school like The Suva Grammar School, ought to be available to all on the basis of merit, and to none on the basis of race.

As a Diocese we must beware lest in the following of a traditional educational pattern we are in effect seeking to do what Government should be doing and by attempting too much, fail to do anything. We cannot yet say here that Government educational provision is such as to make possible our withdrawal from any of our schools, but we must not lose sight of the fact that in the future these institutions could drain resources needed for new avenues of service if and when the Government provision for education is sufficient.

The report on the Liturgy is the beginning of a slow process of consultation which will lead to a Liturgy for the Pacific Dioceses. If Synod approves the suggestions before us and they win acceptance from the Bishops of the Province then I would hope that an experimental period would enable us to test the proposed Eucharistic and Baptismal rites. What you have before you is an attempt, and on the whole a very successful attempt, to simplify the services of the Church. But this is only half of the task. The second is to make the liturgy expressive of the culture in which it is set. It is I think significant that in most Churches of the Pacific Islands in my Diocese of every denomination the only sign of island culture is the mats--and we walk on those! Music, art, and decoration have been badly neglected and until they take their place our Christianity is not rooted in the culture of the islands--it remains a foreigner. That is as true of the Cathedrals of this city as it is of the Centennial Methodist Church.

The meke or lakalaka e.g. provides us with a dramatic form admirably suited to the teaching of the Christian faith in a way understood by the island people. The expressive dance of the Indian people has the same possibility. Let us seek to use these things to the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom.

My heart aches as in every part of the Diocese I find a pattern of worship which is largely Western and alien. I regard it as an urgent matter that this should be corrected. In the same way I hope we can find Samoan, Tongan, and Fijian words for Anglican even if we have to invent them! We are not and we do not belong to the Church of England--and our name must reflect that fact.

If we are to have a Liturgy for the Pacific Dioceses then several things must be protected.

[45] 1. the rights of our indigenous people to make their voices heard about the liturgy;

2. Any proposals must have "reality, objectivity, simplicity, and straight forwardness expressed in exact language."

3. Flexibility is primary. "The Liturgy must be adaptable to various social settings, customs, proclivities of races etc. in duration of services, wording, music, postures, colours, architecture etc. without impairing its integrity and theological content." We cannot transplant another liturgy here. This is why an experimental period is important.

4. The ceremonial belonging to one rite will, transplanted to another, lead to incongruity.

5. So far as Scripture is concerned, "the principle of selection according to a theme is to be preferred to any mechanical continuity. Not that the Bible is read is of primary importance, but how it is read."

Finally, the legislation before you is aimed at establishing wider participation in Synod and clarifying certain confused issues in our Synodical Acts. After they have been dealt with I hope Synod will instruct Standing Committee to reprint the laws of the Diocese. I am grateful to Mr. A. D. Leys for all his work on this and so many other matters.

My Synod Charge of 1962 remains a fundamental document which must have its priorities reassessed by Standing Committee in the light of Toronto, but I am thankful that together we have began to achieve something of the vision we then explored together. I do not intend to list our achievements beyond thanking God for [45/46] the wonderful gift of £10,000 towards our Children's Home project, and thanking all of you for your kindness to me and your patience in bearing with me.

Now I commend our deliberations to the guidance of Almighty God.

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