Social Column.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXI, Issue 5697, 28 June 1902, Page 4

Social Column.

The matter included m this column is con tribu ted and paid for . j

A Catholic Archbishop ■ on the People and Temperance.

4, _.. A POWERFUL ADDRESS. OBBAT MaBTINO IN COBK. (From " Catliolio Times," London.) His Sra.ce, Archbishop Ireland, stays the " Catholic Times " on the evening of Wednesday, July 19, delivered a lecture entitled " The People and Temperance" m the Theatre, Cork. The " Times " quotes from thb Cork " Examiner" reports that every part; of the house waa crowded, while the enthusiastic reception accorded His Grace reflected Ms popularity not alone as an tiiminent dignitary of the church, but as a powerful and eloquent leoturer. He held the close interest of his audience from the opening to the closing sentence of his address. Amongst those present were Moat Eev, Dr Brown, Bishop of Cloyiiet the Crty High Sheriff (Mr A. M. Cols, T.C.); Bight Beverend Monsignor M J Sweeney, P. P., V.G., St Patrick's ; and Eight Eev. Monsignor Nugent (Liverpool.) la his opening remarks the Archbishop said, I haye" come back to Cork, the city •where Father Mathew began Ms labour ; I have come back to pay reverence to the shrines where ministered the Apostle of total abstinence, I have stood with reverence and devotion near his statue on Pat-ricks-street. I am certain that his memory lives not only m word, but m sentiment. I am firmly convinced that you are ready to repeat every day the words inscribed on his statue, " from a grateful people." Father Mathew has honoured Cork,- he has honoured the Irish race throughout the world; he has honoured the church of which he was a child and a priest, and I feel with deepest conviction that Father Mathew was indeed a benefactor of the Irish race, and all that is needed to place the Irish race •upon the high pedestal of prosperity, honour, and glory is that they carry out loyally and continuously the injunctions of Bey. Theobald Mathew IBEIiAND SOBBB WOULD BE IRELAND FBEE. There is one word that tells emphatically the vital condition which must attend all other efforts towards social elevation, what must be ctono if you would succeed m any measure for the betterment of the people, and the word—l pronounce it with love and reference—God grant that we all hail it with the devotion it deserves!—the word is sobriety. A great patriot—A. M. Sullivan —said, a few years ago, " Ireland sober is Ireland free." Ireland sober is Ireland happy and contented; Ireland sober is Ireland so strong that no power of oppression can keep her down or prevent her people from leading m all the works of civilisation, intelligence, and social advancement. For nearly forty years I have worked among the Irian people as Priest and Bishop. I know their wishes and I know their faults, and because I love them with every fibre of my heart I am prepared to speak to them -wherever they are — m Ireland or Amerioa—with absolute frankness. I am prepared to tell them of theoneobstacle m their pathway to happiness, m the firm hope that something may be done to remove that obstacle, and place the Irish people on the heights where God intended them to live. In many of the cities, you find too many of our people who are miserable, and you find them too many—oh, God, why should ever the sons of Erin be m such places ?—you find them m asylums and poorhouses, although m America they live m the land of plenty, m the land of the fullest opportunity. The Archbishop's Oath. I have studied their career from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have asked the cause, and every where it was said to me, there is but one cause—drink. I say it with the deepest conviction after a ministry of 40 years spent m America that if Irish emigrants coming to us had brought with them the pledge of Father Mathew, and had adhered to ifc> there would be now m America ao element of the population, more powerful, more wealthy, more respected than the Irish-American people. And when I recall these things—when I remember what ought to have been, and then remember what was the cause of misery, I feel the strongest indignntion arising m my soul, and because of my love for the Irish people I speak forth anathema to intoxi- ] eating drink, and I swear before the living ; God, so long as my hand can be raised m opposition to intoxicating drink (applause). ' And so long as my tongue can move it shall be moved m praise of sobriety and m cursing intoxicating liquor. ■ Liquob Bars " Accursed Vestibules of Hell." There are to-day m Ireland 19,000 public- ] houses—that is, one public-house for every 236 souls, men, women, and children included. But subtract from these 236 the children who cannot drink, and a large number of men and women who, thank God, don't drink, or drink with the greatest sobriety-andthenseehow few there are! to support each one of those public-houses, and how consistently those few must spend the fruits of their labour to support Rthese vestibules of hell. In your city of Cork— one licensed house for every 126 souls m your population, and deduct from 126, again, the children and those who don't drink,™and you have a very smallnumber of slaves to work m the sweat of their brow to maintain each one of those accursed public houses. ' ' , WHERE POTEKTT AND CRIME COME FEOM. j And of these 576 licensed houses 417 are ■what you would call tied houses —set tip by the wholesale trade, and I know that last year m Ireland, not including the amount of foreign spirits and foreign winea there were consumed m Ireland not made m Ireland but retained for home consumption, spirits to the value of .£11,826,838 (sterling. In a population little over four millions there are spent for beer and spirits nearly £12,000,000, aad, what is fearful, these figures ahow an increase of J2i67,000 over the previous year, and yet we talk of the poverty and misery to which so many of our people are doomed. Oh, let us first keep m our pockets this 12 millions of pounds, and then if there is occasion, let us take to bewailing poverty. There were committed to the prisons of Ireland during 1896 23,080 males and 11,113 females. Now we are ready to explain and say. "Oh, all the crime was drunkenness ; otherwise our people are as good as any and better than any. " "3SYKRY LOVER OE IRELAND SHOULD PUT DOWN THE ACCURSED EVIL. " In God's name why do you not take the matter m hand and blot out from the fair face of Erin that stigma which attaches to it before the nations of the world. Now, I 'am certain that if you examine closely the causes that led to this number of arrests you will find that, directly or indirectly, 90 per cent can be brought home to intemperance. When I hear of so many arrests for one year m Ireland, remembering that they are due to intemperance. lam ready to call upon every lover of Ireland and every lover of religion to labour with all the energy of soul and body to put down that one accursed evil. One public house m Ireland to every 236 souls, and how the traffic is fastened upon the poor people ! From North to South of your country, I found signs of improvement, but I fostsd, towering above every other edifice breweries and distilleries, covering whole squares- I found, as mno other country m the world, whisky advertised as it is m your own. Oh, it would seem aa if the demon of drink were afraid that some poor ; fellow would not know where to find him j irad takes good care to obtrude himselt, everywtoere before the eye of adult or child. And then those distilleries and those breweries are, as I understand, companies, the shares of which are held b| men and, women high and low, so that it has been worked to this, that a great number of our people are interested- m the success ol breweries and distilleries (loud cheers and a voice ■ " That is the whole evil ). And these breweries and distilleries take upon fhewel?sa -each one- hundreds of houses

and control your politics, so thai; men putting tb em selves forth for election are afraid to tight the liquor traffic. Men m that position are afraid to lift their arm against it. THE FRUITS 01? INTEMPERANCE x^EB poverty, ignorance, sin, ill-health of body, i destruction of valued weal. What is the use of providing work for the multitude if when a few shillings or a few pounds are earned they are brought to fill the till of the public-house ? Never, surely, was I negro servitude m America equal to the I servitude of the labourer, man or woman, who works under this ourse. Intemperance is a despot 5 and man, and woman as well, is the slave. ■POLITICS DEGRADED BY DRINK Laws to promote the social welfare of the people are all m vain if they still drink. If the voters of the land are politically corrupt, they will vote for the interests of the saloon and with such a constituency, good God, what of the nation P ,PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE, In America I could bring you to one of the Irish settlements, thirty or forty miles !in length and twenty m breadth, and throughout it you would not find one public house, and not one man who taint his lips with intoxicating liquors. I visited a settlement some time ago, and some men gathering around me said to me m gleeful play, " Archbishop, you had some trouble some years ago to. get us to take the pledge. Well, you would have much more trouble now to get us back to where the devil had us." I could tell you city after city where rarely you would find over a whisky shop a Celtic name. Celtic names, they say, are made for better things. We have laws prohibiting the opening of saloons within very long distanced from churches or schools. We say to the traffic —* You cannot come near the schoolhouse. Your breath smells of hell, and it must not taint the youth of the land. 1 We say —'You must get away from the churches. The devil cannot walk side by side with Almighty God.' And what has been done m America may be done anywhere, and indeed this fight against alcoholism is going the round of the world. The Evil is Terrific. Therefore the uprising against it must be terrific. It is to-day a question of life or death to the people, of life and death to tens of thousands of souls. It is a question of National Honour, of National lite. The one question for the Irish people at home and abroad is sobriety. The LiQtroß Traffic is the Death-knell on 1 Liberty. Men say, " I wish to have my liberty." What is liberty P It is the protection of man's labour, it is the protection of man's property, it is the protection of the woman and the child, it is the protection of the poorest m the community. Liberty is the death of despots everywhere, and the man who fattens on the wages of miserable, j idiotic men and wemen must ba put down lin the name of liberty. Well, now, what j must you do ? Do something m God's name; , let Ireland rise up as one man, and say j from the summits of your authorities s tem- , poral, aud spiritual,- down to the poorest of the poor, say, "We shall put down intemj perance m the name of God and m the ! name of country," and then you will gain i the enjoyment of the fullest liberty. Can j nothing be done because there is so much i to be done? What is needed ? Personal total I abstinence. And who will dare say he is ! not capable of that sacrifice for the sake of ' Ireland, for the sake of Holy Church, for j the sake of humanity, and for the sake of , God ? I appeal to the Irish people at home 1 and abroad. What I care for is the social ■ elevation of Ireland. As one loving her, as one ready to bow down m deepest sacrifice for Ireland, as one who has but one object m life, to serve her people, I bid her m God's name to renew the work of Father Mathew. I bid her to have organisations, , and I bid her people to be soldiers of the cause, and 1 appeal, from the depths of my heart, to those whose office gives them influence and power, to those whose words are ever listened to by the Irish people—l appeal to them to renew the spirit, the work of Father Mathew, that Ireland sober may be Ireland free.