TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 226, 17 June 1908, Page 8

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter in this column is supplied by a representative of tho Now Zealand Alliance, and The Dominion is in no way responsible for the opinions expressed therein.] THE OAMARU MANIFESTO. Tho valuo of the manifesto issued by tho Mayor of Oaniaru and signed by 100 leading citizens of that district testifying to tho unqualified success of No-License is greatly enhanced when tho names of those signing it are examined. A public manifesto signed by gentlemen occupying the following positions must command attention:— Tho Mayor, who is also chairman Harbour Board and chairman Charitable Aid Board. The President of tho Chamber of Commerce. ■Tho Official Assignee. Tho Editor, " Oamaru Mail." Tho Editor, " North Otago Times." Tho Crown Prosecutor. . Tho Senior Barrister and Solicitor (who prior to No : License was solicitor for tho Licensed Victuallers' Association). All tho medical men in tho town. All tho schoolmasters. . And, besides these, other representative tradesmen and citizens, making 100 in all. It is noteworthy that the "North Otago Times" used to be a pronounced opponent of No-License. Tho success of the experiment has secured tho support of the Editor. Tho testimony of such representative men cannot bo gainsaid. " IN THE CATEGORY OF ECONOMIC WASTES." TESTIMONY OF A LABOUR WRITER. Writing in the, " Southern Workman," U.S.A., concerning the sweeping victories of Prohibition in the Southern States, Mr. John E. White says, as reported by the; American " Review of Reviews ": —" The economic conscience is behind Prohibition. The truth lias at last, been. recognised that the whisky traffic belongs to tho category of economic wastes—floods, famines, wars, and disasters of nations. Industrial conditions forced this conviction upoji the people. . . Prohibition is not on tho defensive. It is a great broad, deep movement of the most commanding proportions, with an inspiration .at its heart. It has laid h.old upon tho spirits of southern solidarity, and is making an appeal to patriotic imagination, to sectional pride which is having an,effect on the national conIt will be recorded as tho most influential moral deed achieved in American civilisation during the first quarter of the Twentieth Century." , J PERTINENT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. In a stirring address given in Rochester, N.Y., on' the first Sunday in this year, Mr. Clinton H. Howard asked some - pertinent questions on Prohibition in Maine, to which ho gave telling answers. Among them were these two:— ,1. "Who says that Prohibition is a ure?""The men who do not want it; the men who contribute vast sums of money to defeat .it; tho, men who violate the law tinder License and under Prohibition, who ship their outlawed traffic over the ' dry' line in disguised packages, false labels, and lying bills of lading. Theso disinterested witnesses are tho loudest in proclaiming tho failuro t£ the law. 2. "Who says that Prohibition is a sue-' cess ? '■' "Tho people who want it; the people who have tried it, lived under it, watched it in operation, compared it with, regulation, and voted year after year to,retain it because it reduces to a minimum the curse of the saloon." A NOTABLE INDICTMENT. "(By the late Cardinal Manning.) The .ilato- Cardinal - Archbishop- Manning, who -was a devoted member of'tho United Kigdom Alliance, and warmly- advocated the popular direct veto, vividly illustrated the fruits of, the drink traffic everywhere when ho wrote'in an article for the "Fortnightly Review " of so long ago as September, 1886, the following, indictment against drinking lii the United Kingdom, and accused the licensed Jiquor traffic of being tho source of tho evil. His Eminence said:— "Is there then any one dominant vice of our nation? To answer this let us ask:— "(1) Is thoro any vice in the United Kingdom that at least 60,000, or as others believe and affirm, 120,000 everv vear? " (2) Or that lays the seed of a whole harvest of diseases of tho most fatal kind, and renders all other lighter diseases moro acute, and.perhaps even fatal in tho end? " (3) Or that causes at the! least one-third of all tho madness confined in our asylums? "(4) Or that prompts, directly 'or indirectly,, 75 per cent, of all crime,? " (5) Or that produces an unseen and secret world of all kinds of moral evil, and of personal degradation, which no police court ever knows and no human eye can ever reach?

11 (6) Or that, in tho midst of our immense and multiplying wealth, produces not poverty, which is honourable, but pauperism,' which is a degradation tc> a civilised' people ? " (J) Or that ruins men of every class and condition of life, from the highest' to tho lowest, men of every degreo of culture and education, of every honourable profession, public officials, military and naval officers and men, railway and household servants, and, .what is worse than all, that ruins women of every class, from tho most rude to tho most rofined ? (8) Or that above all other evils is tho most potent causo of destruction to the domestic life of all classes? " (9) Or that has already wrecked, and is continually wrecking, the, homes of our agricultural and factory, workmen? " 9 r " la t has already been found to paralyse tho productiveness of our industries in comparison with other countries, especially tho United States? 1 v (11) Or, as we aro officiallv informed renders our commercial seamen" less trustworthy oil board ship? ■ (12) Or that spreads these accumlating evils throughout tho British Empire, aud is blighting our fairest colonies? "(13). Or that has destroyed, and is de®tr°ying, the indigenous races wheresoever' the British Empire is in contact with them so that from the hem of its garment there goes out not the virtue of civilisation and of Christianity, but degradation and death ? "