Work
p. 47 · Read in the full issue
War And Mission
Vast Disturbance in Pacific
MISSION bodies generally are much concerned about what is happening to the native peoples in Pacific areas occupied by the Japanese.
The Newcastle Diocesan Synod has urged the Australian Prime Minister to arrange for aeroplanes to distribute leaf lets over native areas in enemy terri tory, printed in the native languages, explaining the withdrawal of the Euro peans, and informing the natives that the Europeans now are fighting the Japanese, and will return and continue their educational and medical work.
Some speakers feared that the with drawal of the Europeans, in the face of the Japanese, would undo much of the good work done during the past quarter century.
Fate Of Bishop Wade
THE journal “Catholic Missions”, stated in May that Bishop Wade and his two assistants, Fathers Conley and Hennessy, who remained in the Bougain ville district with the natives, had been made prisoners by the Japanese, and taken to Rabaul. The same journal, in June, announced that a message received late in May, via the Solomons Islands Resident Commissioner and Suva, stated that Bishop Wade had not been taken prisoner; and that the previous report had been of enemy origin.
Since then, the Japanese have come southwards in force from Bougainville and occupied most of the Solomons; so the fate of the Bishop and his assistants is still obscure.