A CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP ON THE PEOPLE AND TEMPERANCE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12264, 5 August 1905, Page 4

A CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP ON THE PEOPLE AND TEMPERANCE.

A POWERFUL ADDRESS

GREAT MEETING IN CORK

(From "Catholic Times," London.) . iiis~ Grace, Archbishop Ireland, says vie "Catholic Times," on the evening ot Wednesday, July 19th, delivered a lecture entitled "The People and loniperanoe,' , in the Theatre, Cork. Iho •Times" .quotes from the "Cork Examiner" reports that every part of the houso was crowded? while the enthusiastic reception accorded his Grace re-; ttected his popularity, not alone as an eminent dignitary ot the Church, but as a powerful and eloquent lecturer. ne held the close interest of his audience from the opening to the closing sentence of his address.- - Amongst those present were:—Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Hishop of Cloyne, the City High Sheriff (Mr A. 31. Cole, T.C.), Right Reverend Monsignor al'Sweeney, P.P., V.G., St. Patricks, and Right Rev. Monsignor Nugent (Liverpool). In his opening remarks, the Archbishop said:—l have come back to Cone, tho city where Father Mathecv began, his labour; I have come back to pay reverence to the shrines whero ministered the Apostle of total abstinence, I have stood with reverence and devotion near his statue on Patrick's street. 1 am certain that his memory lives not only in word but in sentiment. I am firmly convinced that, you are ready to repeat every day tho worde inscribed onliis statue, "From a grateful people." Father .Mathew has honoured Cork; he has honoured Ireland; 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 Mafnew was indeed a benefactor of the Irish race, and all uint is needed to place the Irish race upon the nigfy pedestal of prosperity, honour, and glory is that they carry out loyally and l - continuously tho injunctions of Rev. Theobald Mathew., IRELAND SOBER WOULD BE IRELAND FREE. > 'There in one ' word that tells emphatically the vital condition which must attend all other efforts towards social elevation, what must be done if; you would succeed in any measure for t.ie / bettermcnfc of tfhe people, and the word—l pronounce, it with love And r3verence-—God grant that we all hail it with the dovotion it .deserves!—-.the ward is sobriety. A great, patriot—. A. M. Sullivan—said, a few years ago, "Ireland sober is Ireland free." Ireland sober ie Ireland happy and contented; Ireland sober is Ireland so strong that no power of oppression can keep her down or prevent her people from lead-/ ing in all the works of civilisation, intelligence, and social advancement. For nearly forty years I have worked among the Irish people a« Priest and Bishop. I know their- wishes, and I know theirl rault3, and because I *love them with* every fibre of my heart I am prepared to speak to them wherever they are— in Ireland or America—with absolute frankness. I am prepared! to tell them of tho one obstacle in their pathway to happiness, in • tho firm hop© that something may ba done to remove that obstacle, and place tho Irish people on the heights! wliere Gcd intended them to live. In many of the cities yon find too many; of our people who are miserable, and you find them too many—-oh, God, why should ever the son* of 1 Erin be in* sucn places?~you find them in asylums an 4 poorhouses, although in America, .thoy" live in the land of plenty, in the land of the fttllest f THE ARCHBISHOPS OATH. i ,1 have studied their career from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have a&\ied the cause, end everywhere it wes said to mc, there ie but one cause—drink. I say it with the deepest conviction, affer a ministry of forty years spent - in America, that if Irish emigrants coming to us had brought :Tvitli them-the pledgo of Father Mat Sew, end lied adhered to j it, there,-would be now in America no; element of tlie population, moro powerful, more wealthy, moro 'respected, than the Irish-American people. And when I recall these things—when I remember what ought to have been done, and then ' remember what was the cause of misery, j I feel the strongest indignation arising in my soul, and because of my love for the Irish people I speak forth anathema to intoxicating drink, and I swear before the living God; so long as my hand can be raised, it diall/be raised in opposition <o. intoxicating drink. (Applause.) And so long as my tongue can move it shall be moved in praise of sobriety and in enrsing intoxicating liquor. LIQUOR BARS " ACCURSED VESTIBULES OF HELL." There are to-day in Ireland 19,000 publichoitses—that is, one publichou»e for every 236 souls, men, women and children included. But tubstract from ! these 236 the children "who cannot drink, and a, large number of men and women wfho, thank God. don't drink, or drink wi*h the greatest sobriety—and then see how few there are to support each one of those pnblichouse*, end W consistently those few must spend the fruits of rheir labour to support vestibules of hell. In your city of Cork—one licensed house for every 12G souls in yonf population, and deduct from 126, again, the children and those who don't drink. Mid yon have a. very small number of slaves to work tn the f=wea<t of their brow Ao maintain each one of Ibose accursed publicoousee. WHERE POVERTY AND CRIME COME FROM. And of these 576 licensed houses 417, are wnat you would call tied Eet np by the -wholesale trade, and I know that last year in Ireland, not including the amount of foreign spirits and foreign vines there were consumed in Ireland, not made m Ireland, but retained for home consumption, spirit* to tho value of £11,826,888 sterling. In β-popnletion little over 'four millions there are spent for beer and spirit? nearly £12,000,000, and, what n fearful. those figures show' an increase of £167,000 over the previous year, and yet wo talk of the poverty awd .misery to wjrich. co many of onr people »po doomed. Oh, let us first: keep in: our .pockets tlria twelve millions of pounds, and then, if there is occasion,. let us

take to beimilia* powrtjr.' Tbere'Wna committed to the "prisons of Ireland during 1896 23,090 make.,end. 11,113 females. Now ire are ready to jap'kin and sty, "Oh, all the crime waa dronkeness, otherwise our people are a* good as any and better than-any." Of coarse they are , ** •good as any. "EVERY LOVER OF IRELAND SHOULD PUT DOWN THE AC OURSED EVIL." In God's,name why do you not,take, the matter in harkL and blot out from the fair face of Erin thit sHjpna idiidi attaches to it before the nations of the "world. Now, I am certain that if yon examine dceely the causes that led' to this number of arrests you -n-ill find that, directly jot indirectly, 90 per cent; can be brought home to intemperance. When I hear of so many arrests for one year in Ireland, remembering that they a,re due to intemperance, I am ready to call upon every lover of -Ireland and owery lover of religion, to' labour with oil the energy of soul and body to put down (list one accursed evil. One pubKchome in 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 1 found, above every other edifice, breweries and distilleries, covering whole squares. I found, as in no other country in_ the world, whisky advertised as it is in your own. Ofii.it would seem es if the demon of drink were afraid that some poor fellow would not know where to find him, and takes good oaro to obtrude himwlf everywhere before the eyo of adult or child. And then those distilleriea and those breweries are, as -I understand, companies, the sharesr of which are held by men and women high and, low, so that it has bwn worked to this, that* great number of our people arc interested m the sucew* of bmweries and distilleries. (Loud cheers, and a voice: " That is the whole evil.") And these breweries and distilleries take upon /themselves—each one , —hundreds of houses, and control your politics, so that men putting thwmolver, forth for election are afraid to fight tho liquor traffic. Men in that position are afraid to Mfc their arm against it.* - THE FRUITS OF INTEMPERANCE ARE Poverty, ignoranco, em, ill-health 'of body, destruction of valued weal, what is the use of providing work for the. multitude if. when a few shillings or.a few pound*, ate earned, they are brought to fill tlie till of the pnblichonwP Never, surely, was negro eer- ! vitude in America equal to tho servitude of fh© labourer, man or woman, who works under tlm cures. Intemperance is a despot; and man, and woman as well, is the slave. POLITICS DEGRADED BY DRINK. Laws to promote the social welfaro of the people are all in vein if they soul drink. if the voters of the lana ; are politically corrupt, they will vote for the interests of tho saloon; and' with e»ch a constituency, good Gcd. what ot the nation? . PR ACTICAL'EXPERIENCE. In America I could bring you to one of the Iran settlements, thirty or forty miles in length and twenty in and thiongjiout it you would notrfiml one public-nouse, and not one man who? would taint his lips with intoxicating liquors. 1 visited a settlement some tune ago, and sorao men gathering around me* said to mc in gleelul play, "Archbishop; you had some.trouble' some yeais ago to get us to take the pledge. Well, you would have much more trouble now to get us back to whero the devil had us.' I could tell you city after c« t .v where id rely you would find over a shop a Celtic name. Celtic names, they say, are made for better i«>.ings. "We have laws prohibiting the ■ vpening of saloons within 7ery long distances from churches or schools. We say to tne traffic: "You cannot come neor tho schoolhouse. . Your . breath smells of hell, and it must''not taint tne yonfh ot the land." r e say;: "*ou must get oway from the churches. The devil cannot walk sid? by *Tde with Almightyc<3od.">..' -Uid what has-been done in America may be done anywhere, arid, indeed, this fight against alcoholism is going the round of the world.

THS EVIL IS TERRIFIC. ; i Therefore the uprising against it muot I «be terrific. It is-to-day a question of [line or death to the people; of life 'and to tens of thousands" of '.settle. At is a question of national honour) of national life. The one question fcr the Irish people «t home and *brc*d is sobriety. ■ , ' LM.K LIQUOR TRAFFIC "IS y-THE DEATH-KNISLL OF LIBERTY.; Men &3y, "I wish to= have my liberty. , ' What JH liberty? It is the protection of. man's labour, it tha protection of man's property,-it i» tne protectipn of tho woman and the child, it is the protection of the poorest in the community., liberty is the death "of despots vhere, and the man who fattens on >thY Vag«« of miserable, idiotic ■ men ■Hβ women must bd put down in the name of liberty. 'W«ll,'-now. what must 'you' , do? Do something in God' 3 name; let Ireland rise up as one man, say from the summits of your authorities, temporal. and spiritual,, down .to the poorest of the poor, say, "We shall put down intemperance in' the namo of God and in the nanfe of country," and then you will gain the enjoyment of the fullest liberty. Can ,nothing be, done b«can«s so much is needed to be done?, What is heeded? Pereonpl total abstinence. And- who will dare* nxy he is not capable of that" little sacrifice for the'sake of- Ireland,, led* the sake of Holy Church, for tho sake of humanity, and for the sake of God? I appeal to the-Irish* people at home and abroad. , What I care for is the social elevation of Ireland. Aβ one loving her, as one ready to bow downiji deepest sacrifice for Ireland-, as one who has but one object in life; to eerre.Hher people, I bid her in God's'name to renew the work of Father Mathew. Ibid her to have organisations, and 1 bid her peoDle to bo. soldiers of: the cause, and I appeal, from tfie depths of my heart, to those whose office gives them influence and 'power, to thece 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 eobwr may be Ireland free./ 40