THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

Evening Star, Issue 7480, 26 March 1888, Page 4

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir,—The violent and unguarded tirade of Mr W. S. Houchins on the above subject, bo fully reported in your issue of the 24th inst., effects its own condemnation in the minds of all sensible moderate men, and will be sure to give rise to a flood of rebutting correspondence. While I myself, in common with those whose views I may haply represent, deplore as sincerely as Mr Houchins and his audience the evils that result from the abuse and the adulteration of an otherwise good thing, we are assured that the common sense of mankind indicates that the extreme measures they advocate to eradicate, these evils are as erroneous as they are impossible of accomplishment; and since Mr Houchins, in his blind attack on some of the acknowledged evils of the abuse of alcoholic liquors, does not hesitate to compare honest brewers and holders of bottle licenses and wholesale merchants who may be members of Christian churches to those who commit the very worst crimes against society, let me in the first place refer him and those who think with him to the following oft-quoted texts in the Bible (premising that I think we shall be justified in including under the comprehensive term of " wine" all good modern alcoholic liquors, beer and whisky, the " wine " of malt, etc.):— Judges ix., 13 ; Psalm civ., 15; Provovb- vxxi., G-7; Ecclesiastes, x., 19; Song of Solomon viii., 2 ; and last, and most suggestive of all, St. John's Gospel ii., 1-11. I am aware, of course, that other texts may be brought forward inveighing against drunkenness and the abuse of so-f<alled drink, but they do not annul the verdict of the above quoted texts—that wine is a "good" tiling. Dr B. W. Richardson, a most ardent temperance advocate, is nevertheless compelled to admit that " the moderate use of alcoholic liquors does add to the cheerfulness of life." The following quotation from an article in 'Good Words' for April, 1887, entitled " Lord Shaftesbury as a social reformer," is so apropos to the present subject that I will quote it in full :—" While losing no opportunity of exposing the sad evils of drunkenness, he (Lord Shaftesbury) never saw his way to be a total abstainer, still less a prohibitionist. Temperance was the virtue, not abstinence; and in 1868 he made at a public banquet what will seem to many a curious speech in defence of' a very old custom which seems to have been going out of late, but which,' he says, 'I am glad to see is being revived—the custom of drinking a glass of wine with your fellow man.' He speaks of it as ' one of the wisest institutions,' because he had often known it to be the means of composing quarrels and cementing friendship, and concluded: 'Therefore I say never give up this convivial system ; only take it, like you should every other means of enjoyment, in moderation!' . . . While respecting abstainers he would not follow them, because he would not have men ascetic, though he would have them sober." As long as the physical constitution of humanity remains the same the demand for stimulants will continue, and the efforts to suppress the legitimate satisfaction of this demand resemble Mrs Partington's endeavors to stay the rising tide with her mop ; but if prohibitionists and ardent temperance advocates would direct their energies towards the attainment of the possible prohibition of the sale of aught but sound, pure, unadulterated alcoholic liquors—beer, the product of malt and hops; wine, the juice of the grape; and spirits, sound and -well - matured, manufactured only from the most wholesome sources—they would do more to secure their ends—the removal of the evils of the drink traffic—than by trying to suppress it altogether; and, moreover, would have their forces joined as allies by the more numerous moderate party. I say nothing here of what may be hoped for as the effect of universal education in raising higher aims for the attainment of happiness than over-indul-gence in intoxicating liquor, and in strengthening the mo*al fibre to avoid excess.—lain, etc., A Moderate Man. Diinedin, March 26.