TEMPERANCE EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 6 September 1928, Page 10

TEMPERANCE EDUCATION

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The president of the. Moderate League, Mr. £>. M. Findlay, declares that the Prohibition question lies like a fallen tree across the road to real reform and temperance. Mr. Findlay condemns the New Zealand Alliance for its political activities. The Moderate League has been absorbed into the Licensing Reform Association, which professes a truly touching solicitude for temperance. Will the Licensing Reform Association tell us jußt what they have done for temperance teaching since they became an association? We would like to know, for instance, how many meetings has the L.R.A. organised at which educational addresses in regard to the effect of alcohol on the human body, have been given; how many Bands of Hope has the L.R.A. been instrumental in starting? How much literature demonstrating the advantage of-total abstinence has the L.R.A, distributed? What activity has the L.R.A..undertaken to ensure that the children of New Zealand shall be -taught the scientific facts regarding the beverage use of alcohol? In short, can the L.R.A. point to a single thing which it has accomplished that has resulted, or is likely to result, in the reduction of the ,consumption of alcoholic beverages, or in minimising the evils arising from intemperance. The New Zealand Alliance devotes a considerable portion of its time, and a considerable portion of its budget to activities and expenditure of a practical educative character, designed to inform the adult and juvenile population of the facts with regard to the effect of alcohol on the human body and mind. The alliance has been directly responsible for-starting hundreds of Bands of Hope and roaches over 40,000 children every month with a definite temperance message. In ■ addition to this, the alliance has continually urged the desirability of more effective temperance teaching in the schools, arid has been to considerable expense with a view to facilitating the task of •the teachers who arc required, by the Education Department syllabus, to give temperance teaching in the day schools. It the L.R.A. can prove itself to be anything but a political organisation, we invite it to produce the proof.—l am, etc., J. MALTON MURRAY, Executive Secretary, ■ New Zealand Alliance.