MISS BALGARNIE'S MISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 113, 14 May 1902, Page 3

MISS BALGARNIE'S MISSION.

Despite the exceedingly inclement weather, there was a fairly large audience at the Central Mission Hall last evening, when Miss Florence Balgarnie gave her address entitled "The Claims of the Liquor Traffic" versus the Claiims of the People." Mr Robert French, Chairman of the Auckland Prohibition League, occupied the chair. Miss Balgarnie, in introducing her lecture.said the liquor traffic had been tried and tested on the grounds of reason, patriotism, and Christian principle, but had been found wanting The first claim made for the liquor traffic was .'its antiquity, a most brokenwinded argument. Another claim was that it contributed to sociability. A third reason brought forward was that it waa good for man's general well-being. Alcoholic drinks, the lecturer said, did not quench thirst, but rather Intensified it. The real vital claim was that it was thei greatest vested interest in the country and in the world, no less than 250 millions of money being invested in the liquor traffic in Great Britain alone. On account of this large vested interest the! liquor traffic audaciously called itself "the . trade," but if given its proper! name it would be called "the trade destroyer." In Edinburgh there was a distillery with a turnover of a million and ahalf of money, employing 150 workers, and an iron business In the same pl&ce with the same .turnover employing 1400 workmen. The liquor traffic was a, destroyer of children, and societies for the protection of children were necessary where the drink was sold. The lecturer then discussed at some length the reformed public-house system. It had been suggested in West Australia that the nationalisation of th<i liquor traffic would he the half-way house to prohibition, but it would be most decidedly a step in the other direction. On the motion of T. J. Bull, seconded by Mr C. H. Poole, a resolution was unanimously adopted thanking Miss Balgarnie for hfer splendid advocacy of the temperance reform, and assuring her of the confidence with which her future mission would be looked forward to later in the year. -