NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AND EFFICIENCY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3191, 15 September 1917, Page 8

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AND EFFICIENCY

Sir,—Tho open letter to tho Cabinet and Parliament from llio officers of tho 'I'emperanco (so-called) League of Carterton presumes that the drinking of a glnss of beer is a sin, and that the drinking capacity of New Zoalanders is a. sin before God. Now, sir, there is no more sin. in drinking beer than in drinking tea; and among nations New Zealand is the most temperate.' It is difficult to understand in tho light of facts that otherwise sano and sensible citizens would allow themselves to malign their nation so wantonly and so unscrupulously. ■'.•'- These officials quote the Old Book, but the Old isbok can be quoted more in favour of drinking wine than in not drinking it. Even the foiindcr, of the Christian, religion was described by the Pharisees of His day as a "wine-bibber"' —tho "friend of publicans and sinners." Is not that the insult the temperance (so-called) zealots and advocates of Prohibition are hurling at the members of the National Government to-day? If we are a sinful people then, what have the churches been doing? It appears that some ministers of religion are less concerned for the moral and spiritual well-being of their people than they are in maligning their neighbours, creating class hatreds, stirring up sectional strife, and pushing' the' political organisation to which, for the purposes of notoriety, they most Tinseemingly belong. look at this Protestant Political Association. Who can say tliat it is being instituted for the purpose of winning (lie war ? Take the Prohibition political organisation: Who can say that its collecting ;£50,000 to stimulate internal class war and hatred is helping the Empire in this hour of trial? Take the case of Russia: The Prohibitionists have held up this country as a shining example which New Zealand should emulate-. The Prohibitionists and the Germans engineered the adoption of Prohibition for that country. They extolled what Prohibition was doing for Russia; but -Prohibition produced the Revolution, and what stood is Bussia to the Allies to-day? Tho Prohibitionists in Great Britain jnduced the Government to so curtail tho manufacture of beer that His Majesty the King had to intervene; and King George appealed to the National Government to increase the manufacture of beer in interests of the munition workers, tho miners, and the agricultural labourers. So widespread was the discontent throneb. the action of the Prohibitionists in this respect that the Government grant»d the increase, and thereby allayed the discontent, which was on the eve of open rupture. New Zealand under present conditions has done great things for the Empire, botli in men and siipolies, to carry on the war; and after three years nf war some people think that they will lose thai peculiar advantage which they think the war offers, if they do not succeed in creating and intensifying class hatmds pud latent religious animosities in New Zealand. I trust the National Government will take no noticn of the detractors of this Dominion, for it has proved its national efficiency by its wpll-trained, well-behaved, and -bravo soldiery, and l>y the industrial efforts which have been put forward by its peoplo in providing ample, supplies to help win the war.—l am, etc., BIUTISHEK.