ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1025, 16 March 1894, Page 5

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

THE COMING ELECTION

TO THE EDITOR,

Sir, — Is it sufficiently understood that those who would like to vote for prohibition in the coming licensing elections will not lose their vote even though only a reduction in the number of hotels is carried ? At anyrate this should be made clear. Should prohibition not be carried, all jirho vote for it will be regarded as voting on the "reduction" ticket. Let prohibitionists, therefore, vote for what they want. A word, too, to Good Templars and total abstainers generally. Surely it is inconsistent for these to say, as so many are doing, " Make the people abstainers and the hotels must close." A very poor truism this, and unworthy of a man with a brotherly heart in him. If drink is bad for me, hurtful to all my interests, then I cannot, by my vote or no vote, keep such a trade in existence. Thus Christian men and women should especially see without their permission it couldn't exist. Look at it this way, then : Here is a house which I permit to remain open and carry on its baneful work ; here is a** roa% the highway to poverty and sorrow and nllkery and sin and death, and I clo nothing to block it up. Is it not a great abuse of the principle of tolerance ? Liberty to be the means of leading another — weak, it may be, and foolish, but still *my brother — astray ! ! Is it not a sorry instance of thegreat Frenchwoman's dying words, " Oh, liberty ! liberty 1 how many crimes are committed in thy name !"— I am, &c, Good Tkmplar.

Sir, — It is often urged that there would be sly grog selling under prohibition. In answer to that I would ask, is the plea "If we don ? t

do it some one else will " a good one ? It seems to me no excuse. If we vote for no licenses we at least do our best to check the evils resulting from the sale of strong drink, and are therefore not responsible for them, whereas if by voting or not voting we keep open the hotels, we are responsible,, for the | evils that will result. But would there be sly grog selling? A little, probably. But because murders and thefts are sometimes committed in spite of the law, do -we advocate j the repeal of the ? But prohibition must j be a splendid success, for in Maine, where i they have had prohibition for more than 30 years, the people have by ever ancl ever increasing majorities voted in its favour. That shows that after 30 years' trial they consider it a splendid success. It is also urged that a great amount of revenue would be lost. Mr Gladstone and Sir W. Harcourt are both great financiers, and y£t they have brought In a "Veto Bill. Mr Gladstone gave a noble answer to a deputation that urged this very point upon him : " Gentlemen," he said, " I decline to consider any question of revenue beside the welfare of the people, but give .me a sober population, not .wasting their earnings oh strong drink, and | shall know where to get my revenue." Ai^l shall we hope that drinking with alb its Attendant evils — murders, suicides, wife-beatmgs, ill-treatment and neglect of helpless little children, poverty, the physical and moral degradation of the drunkard — shall continue that we may escape taxation ? Let us rather be willing to be taxed more heavily. But would we be so ? Let us remember that all the money that is spent in strong drink would remain in the country to be taxed, and as most of it would probably be employed in . reproductive industries, it would give a large revenue and clo much more good to the community. Then less drinking — less poverty and therefore less charitable aid : less drinking— fewer drunken men and less crime, ancl therefore fewer ! police, magistrates, gaols, lunatic asylums, ! industrial schools, etc. Think of the saving j on these things, and then we need not be surprised to hear that the taxation in the ( American prohibition States is not greater j than in licensed States. But what about depriving the publican of his living? We j forbid him to get his living in that way be- • cause in so doing he inflicts untold evils upon the community, just as we forbid the burglar to get a living in his way because in so doing he becomes a danger to society. I believe therfe are some publicans who will at heart be glad to be forced out of a trade that they have not the courage to quit of themselves. Nezt Weenesday we shall have an opportunity of votiug for the prohibition of the liquor traffic. Men and women of the Clutha, think of the blasted characters, the ruined homes, the broken-hearted wives, the little children who fear their own fathers, the drunkard himself, sometimes wishing to God that the temptation were out of his way — think of ithese things, and then go and vote for the iprohibition of the traffic thatcauses them. j — I am, &c, I Alex. S. Malcolm, j Kelso, March 14.