TEMPERANCE AND LEADERSHIP.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17607, 9 November 1922, Page 7

TEMPERANCE AND LEADERSHIP.

ADVICE TO TEETOTALLERS. (from ottb own correspondent.) LONDON, September 29. The proceedings of the National Council of Women, at Cambridge, were enlivened by a spirited attack on teetotal extremists, made by Lady Selborne. Lady Horsley had moved a resolution urging the prohibition of the sale of alcohol to persons under 18. The Countess of Selborne said she found herself wholly opposed to the idea of curtailing the freedom of the individual. She very much deprecated any attempt to prevent working youths from having a glass of beer with their dinner. "I say it is a perfectly harmless thing," she continued, amidst cries of dissent. "The nations that have drunk beer are the greatest nations of the world. (Laughter.) There are plenty of nations which never drink, but they are nations that have done least. It is the drinking nations that have led the world. Although I admit that drinking to excess is wrong, I have yet to be convinced that the moderate use of beer or wine is either inadvisable or wrong. There is too great a disposition to meddle in these matters by legislation. I think temperance reformers would do better to follow the advice of their Master and consort with publicans and sinners, than be led away by teetotallers who have invented this virtue as a protest against the abuse of drink which has taken place in this country since ardent spirits were introduced." The dissent which followed the Countess of Selborne's remarks prompted the president to observe, amidst laughter: "Temperance always rouses our worst passions." Lady McKenzie, in a plea for uniformity, said that when statistics Were taken of drinking amongst the working classes, similar figures should be taken relating to the young ladies who drove up in motor-cars to the lounges of big hotels and there smoked cigarettes and consumed codktails and liqueurs. (Hear, hear.) , The resolution was the Countess of Selborne alonp recording her vote in opposition. Prohibition and Its Dangers. It is the view of the ■'Morning Post" that it is really very dangerous for any State to go beyond the Ten .Commandments in its enforcement of prohibition. The United. States has suffered much vexation and disappointment in its endeavour to prevent the more reckless of its citizens from doping themselves with. claTet and lager beer. 'To judge from the American Press, there is now proceeding across the Atlantic a sort of second Civil War, in which the drys, backed by the authority of the law, may yet succeed not only in reforming but also in extirpating the wets. Indeed, it seems as if the only Way of finally circumventing the bootleggers is another St. Bartholomew's Eve. "Though America may be dry, a considerable portion of the rest "of the world is still wet, and already a lucrative, though illicit, trade is being run by the bootleggers. A plain sign that there are difficulties inherent in a policy of abstemious isolation from an international standpoint is to be .found in the American pretension—it is not yet the pretension of the State Department —to search foreign ships, primarily British, outside the three-mile limit,, Here, then, America is finding its zeal for prohibition bringing it into the, dangerous and foggy waters of international law. Now the average American may surrender his liking for drink, but never his respect for law, and, judging from the announcements made by variou? American Governments on this very question of the right of search, the State Department will find itself hard put to it to justify the action of the prohibition enforcement officers. "The prohibition which begins at home has annoying' repercussions abroad. That has been the experience of certain. Northern States. It is now going to be the experience of the United States. "There is another point in this controversy worth noting. Our Washington correspondent points out that there is no friction between the diplomatists of the United States and Great Britain on the matter, and that 'the trouble is with prohibition enforcement officers, who seem to think the AntiSaloon League is so powerful that it can defy international law as well as public opinion.' We always "understood that one of the main arguments of the prohibitionists was the control which the saloon had secured over American politick. .But apparently in this respect dry is but wet writ large. The saloon, with all its faults, confined its reprehensible activities to the territories of the United States. The antisaloon is already sailing the high seas, rather in the Jolly Roger fashion. It is a reflection which should make those who still cling to the reality and not the form of liberty somewhat suspicious of all reformers. Anatole France has said somewhere that he always regretted the passing of a prejudice, because he knew full well that a worse one was going to take its place. Not only America, but also the whole world, may soon be sighing for a return of the much abused wets."