A CORRECTION.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12282, 28 August 1905, Page 5

A CORRECTION.

TO TUB EDITOR OF THE TRESS. Sir, —In your issue of the 7th of August you published a short paragraph reporting a statement which the Rev. S. Lawry delivered 1 in Cathedral squnre on Saturday, tho sth of August. Kindly allow .mc spaco to correct tho statement, which, as it stands, is misr loading. It is truo that when I was in Palmorston North I granted, the use of tlio hall to tho prohibition party in which to hold their conventions, my own presence on two occasions being as much out of onriosity as anything else, end limited to five or ten minutes.at' most. ' I never spoko at any one of those conventions, and my interest in them was practically nil. Sir Lawry stated that I paid my fee, which is true, but he forgot to mention that it was only 5s per annum, and had he gone in tihose years when.prohibition was only beginning to any of tho hotolkeepers, he would have received 5s from any of them. When Mr Lawiry states that I went round Palmerston North with the agent of the New Zealand . Alliance collecting subscriptions for that orcani&iatian, he- saould havo stated the truth, and not a half, which gives an erroneous impression. The aigent was the Rev. Mr Fin Jay, somo time Presbyterian minister, of Akaroa, now engaged in business in Wellington. Mr Finlay stayed at my house on a previous occasion, and when he beca-me the agent for the New Zealand Alliance, I wae- asked if I would put him up when he came to Palmerston North. lat once agreed, and; what I did in those years, whale not approving of prohibition, any man in similar ciircurnstances would hare done it for one with whom he was,on friendly termß. Mr Lawry did .not,'tell ' the auclienco that I preached a. eernion. against prohibition, and in favour of reform-;,,-; which , , gave great offenge to two of.my rabid prohibition elder*/ nor did- he say that before I left Pahneirston Norfh the Preeby texi an Hall was refused to.tho prohibition party to hold their convention in. ■",' ;

I can only say. in conclusion, that had I experienced a nobler, more humane, and Christian type of ethics Among prohibition supporters, I might never have- been led to offer the strenuous opposition which I do. But I can speak with perhaps greater knowledge and from*a more intimate experience than perhaps any other in New Zealand, and I found myself compelled on Chrietian groundii, which cost mc over a year of, careful study and painful consideration, to oppose a. movement which is essentially tyrannical, unjust, and intemperate, and of which the RiglitRev. tho Bishop of Dunedin says:— "But prohibition is a of all gocd, and appears to mc, moreover, to involve an indictment of tho wisdom and goodness of the Creator, which would be blasphemous were it not founded on ignorance. ,, —Yours, etc., WM. THOMSON. Dunedin,. August 23rd.