PROHIBITION AND CONTINUANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 246, 17 October 1925, Page 16

PROHIBITION AND CONTINUANCE.

U'ublished by Two Christian Social Workers.;

I The triennial controversy on the J merits of prohibition is with us aga.n. j Tne real issue in this controversy is i usually buried by each side, by " tie i supporters cv continuance inrough their quotation of sheases of facts and j figures whi-.-h cannot be rightly under- | stood without .explanations and qualifyI ing factoi's, not always given, and by I the supporters of pronibition in a most i iiigemuiio way. ihe word continuance I Used in opposition to prohibition lends i itself to covering up tne issue. Tne •prohibition campaign for the most part .consists of a denouncement of the le\ ila of intemperance, and it is ingeni- ; ously suggested that the supporters of I continuance are supporters of the ! continuance of these evils. That is ; not tho is.-ue. It could not be so. for. lof the licensing polls taken so far, at | the one most favourable to prohibition 'something in the vicinity of half the i Miters of tiie country voted for con- , tiimanee. It could not be suggested 1 that nearly half the people of this | Dominion desire to continue the evils lof intemperance. The real question is ] how best to attack these evils'; The j prohibitionist, says, no other course is jof the least good, do it by an Act of the Legislature prohibiting the u-e of | the wretched stuff. Tlio-e of the other side admit the evils ot in'emperance — ithe i.i-l majority of them deplore 'these evil- -but they ,-ay that the mere passing of an Act of the Legislature is -imply shelving our respon-ibili-j tic*. The fact that a poll is taken j does not carry the matter any further. it give- no greater virtue to the Act. ■for our Parliament U supposed to be. land ;-. representative. urn! its Act I without a poll is just as much an Art | :is one supported by a poll. Tbe object. [the prohibitionist argues, js to attain !a great moral reform. But this cannot be done by an Act of Parliament. It i* I true that the condition of the law may I leave ob.-tacle.s in tiie way of progress, jfliul equally true that the law may |rcmo\c obstacles from thr- path. im; I legal obstacles only, the law cannot I itself make a moral reformation. That must be attained by changing the views lof the people, by lifting public opinion up to a higher plane. Apart from the | obvious truth that moral reform must be attained by changing the heart, it lis clear that a mere prohibition by-law I cannot lie enforced except where the acts prohibited affect a very limited number of people. It will ever' be impossible to enforce a law prohibiting acts common iv the homes of half the people of the country. Theft, drunkenness itself, nearly all the crimes in the calendar, have been prohibited since the dawn of law. Has the prohibition been effective? And note that this prohibition refers to crimes, acts which are abhorrent to every decent member of Ihe community, not to acts which are viewed in this light by onh an extremely small section of the people. It should be noted, too. that the laws against crime were much more severe.,, that is, they were much more violently prohibitory, in the past than they are to-day, yet to-day there is less crime than in the far past when the laws were so severe. The law at a moment of time may maintain order, just such order as is demanded by the public opinion of the time, but it cannot enforce a prohibition of acts of disorder further than public opinion insists. The state of the law, and the capacity to enforce it. are in fact, always some distance behind the condition of public opinion. It is not the, law. therefore. that has either created public opinion, or made reform, but it is public opinion that has made both the law and the reform. Does that not prove the futility of getting, by clouding the issue or by any other ingenious method, a law passed purporting to reform the lives of the pe'-ple. unless it has the support of the great body of effective public opinion, effective in the sense that it will both alter the conduct of individuals and urge the power of the State to enforce tbe law, as is the case in the laws against crime. It is the force of public opinion, it is the Change in the hearts of the people, that is reducing crime, not the law which is merely Hollowing after. Where then, must we work to bring about a great reform of the people? By arbitrarily changing the law? The obvious answer is, No! A thousand times, No. Note, further, that the tendency of our courts in

enforcing the law to-day, and the tendency has been a growing one down the centuries, is towards leniency, towards probation, towards leading the wrongdoer back on to the paths of right. Are we, with reference to one particular weakness of the community, in our impatience for reform, to suddenly reverse our policy, a policy which is the outcome of a tendency based upon the experience of the past, and with respect to this particular weakness to seek to force instead of to lead, to prohibit the use of liquor as well as the abuse, and to enforce the prohibition with the bludgeon of the law? Whenever in our impatience we fail to go round the right road, whenever in order to take a short cut we trespass upon our neighbour's rights, evils are bound to follow, and those who look discerningly will see a crop of such evils in the world. It is because the course is the wrong one that the enormous expenditure of effort and money by many good people upon the endeavour to carry an act of prohibition has persistently failed, and it always will fail in a British community. It is the view of the enthusiastic prohibitionist that drink is the one evil of the world, that all others follow from it. and that, if this evil be wiped out, all evil will go. That is absurd. The movement is the outcome ol that gross materialism of which America is the greatest exponent. In America the spirit is lost, and system, organisation, law, constitute the trinity, the god of progress, and it is a false god. It is time that the large number of good people who have been o-iving their best energies to the reform of the evils of intemperance by prohibition stopped to think, stopped to consider whether the road laid down in the Scriptures is not better than one founded upon American materialism.