TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 12

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[The matter for this column is supplied by a representative of the local temperance bodies, who alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in it.] NEW LICENSING BILL. We are jubilant, says the journal Vanguard. We think it an infinitely better Bill than in our most sanguine moments we ever hoped for. To-day, in genuine surprise, we are asking ourselves how ever .ye got it, as the liquor men are asking themselves^^ in genuine chagrin, how ever they let us get it. Be it realised that the measure was given us by a House largely hostile, and still more largely indifferent, in the teeth of all the influence the Liquor Party could bring to bear, and given us by a Ministry, several members of which are openly the champions of the other side. We should, then, be grateful for the progress made, and whatever the colou- our politics may be, just enough to recognise the way in which both Sir Joseph Ward and Dr. Findlay have stood by their pledges, and to the very limit of their power striven to secure the measure. NATIONAL PROHIBITION. ■ Outstanding above every other feature of tho new Bill i« the provision made for a vote on National Prohibition. This represents tho most advanced Temperance legislation to be found in any part of the world. So' far, w© have been attacking the liquor traffic piecemeal; we shall now have put into our hands a weapon that will enable us to strike at it as a whole, and God helping us, we will strike hard. It will taKe the people some time to wake up to the immensely enlarged responsibility now placed upon them, but when they do wake up there will be such a noise of victorious battle as this country has never yet heard. It is going to be everybody's business everywhere to drive the accursed liquor traffic clean out of New Zealand. No such stirring battle cry has as yet rang out upon the air of this or any other country, and there will tie such a leaping to ifc all over the land as will shake liquordom to its very foundations. It is confessedly the opportunity of the extremist, but the policy of the liquor sellers in this country is manufacturing such extremists oy the thousand every year. BAEE MAJORITY VOTE. We shall never rest satisfied until we have secured the bare majority vote; out it is right u o extract such comfort as we may from adverse conditions, and we have no doubt many will vole for Nohcense and Dominion Prohibition, now the three-fifths handicap is maintained, whose vote could have not been secured had either the -55-45 or bare majority been established. Perhaps, however, the most definite good associated with this measure is the fact that it clears out of the way so many confusing side issues, and leaves us witb one definite sharp cut reform to fight for—namely, the establishment of the bare majority. To the securing of ihis right— the right, mark, that is given to the Maori with this measure, we must (struggle. What is once given to the people can with difficulty be taken away. The right of the young people to vote the liquor traffic— locu, stock, and barrel — out of this Do--nmion is now embodied in an Act of Parliament, and we prophesy that before another five years are over our heads, the unfair handicap that weights that power will be removed, and the way be open to the glorious deliverance we have so long prayed for and struggled for. CANADIAN ANGLICANS. At the Canadian Anglican Bi-Centen-ary Congress, held in Halifax on sth September, Eev. W. H. Van Allen, of Boston, said he was touched with envy and shame in hearing that the General feynod of the Canadian Church had declared for the abolition of the bar. The American Church had not advanced that far yet. The Church should not fear the rich or their concealed 1 threats. He condemned the incongruity of discussing mission after drinking expensive wines. The Bishop of Harrisburg/said that in the United Slates one result of local option in several sections had been that the social evil stopped altogether. He thought the Canadian clergy were ahead of the American in dealing with intemperance. _ The Bishop of Ontario presided at this session. Apparently, the Canadian Anglican Church is not only ahead of England and America, but of New Zealand, too. The day the Anglicans line up here will not only be a good day for the DominT&n, but a good day for the Church. . IN SWEDEN. The Conservative party is favourable to temperance education, the Liberals and Socialists have given their adhesion to full local veto In 1910, the Lower House voted unanimously a resolution for State Prohibition. Ninety members of Teetotal Societies sit in the Lower House. Fifty other Parliament members vote with them in all temperance matters. Two teetotallers only sit in the aristocratic Upper House. On the 1910 elections 'to the Provincial Legislature, among 1217 members elected, 407 are abstainers ; 228 others have promised unconditionally to vote with them; 18 (5 per cent.) of the Conservative provincial deputies are Temperance men ; 92 (5 per cent,) of the Liberals. THE BATHURST LIBERTY LEAGUE. The Bathurst liquor-sellers and the Liberty League are urging friends of the liquor-traffic to boycott all tradesmen who are known to vote no-license. The editor of a local paper declares that this action is a fine advertisement for nolicense. It appears from the most recent returns that the people of Queensland last year consumed 6,794,027 gallons of alcoholic liquors, at an average cost of £1,907,735, or at the rate of £3 Is 6d per head per annum.