DRINK IN PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 7385, 3 December 1887, Page 4

DRINK IN PARLIAMENT.

The charges of gross drunkenness made against the members of our Parliament must be refuted, or those guilty of the offence must be brought to book, so that the place they so shamefully disgrace may soon know them no more. But wMe we demand that the charges made against the Parliament, and specially against the Speaker of the House of Representatives, be satisfactorily dealt with, we can have no sympathy with Sir Julius Vogel in the role of ‘accuser of the brethren. If his statements be correct—they admittedly refer to things and occurrences of the past—why has Sir Julius s virtuous indignation slumbered so long ? Why has he consented to the election and re-election of Sir Maurice O'Rorke to the Speaker’s chair? Why has he not ere now. and while in a position to do so more effectively than now—why has he not long ago taken steps to purge the House of the offence of which he now complains in such offensive terms ? He, as well as the other members of the House who knew the alleged weakness of Sir Maurice, by consenting to his re-election to the chair condoned past offences. The hon. gentleman had evidently acknowledged his failing, and had determined to make an earnest endeavor to overcome it On Sir Julius s own showing Sir Maurice had taken the only effective means available to him to conquer his old enemy. Under these circumstances he should have received the sympathy, support, and encouragement of every true friend and of every generous foe* To do as Sir Juluis did, to throw the past and condoned offence in the face of the Speaker, to hold up in the view of the whole Colony the one acknowledged and grappled-with weakness of a man—otherwise, to say the least of him, as noble, honorable, gentlemanly, and worthy of respect and esteem as Sir Julius himself was utterly unworthy of the place that gentleman holds in the House and the name he has made for himself in literary as well as in political circles. Sir Julius should not forget that there are other vices than that of drunkenness. Vices, too, the development of which is far less influenced by circumstances and conditions; far lass dependent on the environment and the hereditary tendencies "f their victims. These vices, too,induce consequences but little less serious than are those of drunkenness. True, they are not so malignant, they are not so tenacious of life, they do not propagate themselves as do the evils of drunkenness ; their victims die out, and their race is sooner extinct; but the vice itself is as certainly the “act of the Devil and lust” as is the vice of drunkenness. Every member of the Houses of Parliament, present or past, who has consented to, or has failed to oppose the conversion of the Parliament House Into a liquor-shop, must share the responsibility of the intemperance which there, as elsewhere, has resulted from the traffic in strong drink.— 4 Temperance Herald.’