Related Letters - 1907.03.02 Price to Baring-Gould

Letter

Rec Apr 6 1907

Church Missionary Society Foochow March 2. 1907

My dear Mr. Baring Gould,

Many thanks for your letter of Jan 25.

[Only the sections regarding Miss Barber are transcribed below]

  • With regard to Miss Barber, I gather from your letter that she has impressed you with an idea that the question of the Status of Missionaries has been the ‘fons et orige’ of all her trouble. I know from experience that she can be impressive, but I really think that the sea voyage must have affected her memory. The question that gave so much trouble here last summer has nothing directly to do with the ‘Status’ question. It is quite true that Miss Barber is one who has been greatly stirred up by the ‘Status’ proposals of the P.C. ever since they were first published, but the ‘Status’ proposals cannot be made responsible for that particular trouble of which I sent you details in early summer.

As to the other question - the intentions of the P.C. in again referring the proposals to us in 1906, I have no reason to think that the Women’s Conference did not have full information – at least such information as was sent by the P.C.

But as I understand the matter the general principle of the proposals had already been accepted by the Conference Committee; and in the covering letter of 1906 our attention was more particularly called to certain points in regard to which the P.C. desired our opinion.

If the P.C. had wished us to reopen the whole question as to the desirability of having any new ‘Status’ Regulations, it could not have been difficult to make this plain. I do not know feelings[?] that Miss Barber argued about the matter here at the Women’s Conference but I do know that even though she may have differed from others as to the interpretation of the P.C.’s letter, that difference of opinion need hurt nobody and was not the ‘fons et orige’ of all her trouble.

I quite understand that the ‘Status’ question is a thorny one and am not surprised to hear that some of you “cannot see your way.”

We are glad to learn that the new Bishop of Victoria has been chosen.

With Kindest regards, I am yours affectionately, H. McC. E. Price, Bp.

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