THE MODERATE DRINKER

Evening Star, Issue 12625, 3 October 1905, Page 1

THE MODERATE DRINKER

REASONED WITH BY MB ISTTT. . The Rev. L. M fcifct lectured in the Garrison Hall last night to about 1,600 persons on the subject of moderate drinking. Mr A. 8. Adams occupied the ohair, and spoke of Mr Isitt aa one Vho had pushed the temperance cause in a way that no two other men could do. The rev. gentleman began by praising the Scotch for their work in temperance reform. " The popular idea always associates Scotchmen with the whisky bottle, but, whatever the popular idea may be, I know that in Great Britain there is no part of the country that is more advanced upon this question of temperance reform than Scotland, and in New Zealand there is no part more advanced than Otago." Then a warning: "Still, there are one or two of you who want enlightening, and that is what I am here {or. You are not all aware that if we can sweep the licensed liquor bar out of these islands it will mean such.a boom to our commerce, such a morn] uplifting of the people of New Zealand, as perhaps nothing else could enrure." Congratulations followed: " I am glad- to find such an advance since I left. I was to some extent prepared for it by letters, but I never expected to find anything like this." , Next a touch of satire: Why, sir, we are eminently respectable members of society now. I hardly know myßelf. There are no ancient eggs nowadays. lam rather sorry. For all the fun was on my side. My friends the liquor party have many excellent points. But they are most miserable cockrhies. I was never once hit. People now attend our meetings who once on a time wouldn't come within half a mile of us.' And you say to me: " How mild rnu are!" Not at all. Tm the same old sixpence. The explanation is that you have come up to my levtl. Followed by a statement of fact: I don't know, after all, that I am surprised at this. I am delighted. It is only the history of every reform. When a reform is based on the unselfish desire of. the few for the good of the many, and has truth and logic behind it, it must slowly and surely win its way and become such a force in the land as the No-license movement is to-day. Next a bit of fun poked at the liquor rarty: Still, w© have opposition to face, have been told that our stock-in-trade consists of misrepresentation, exaggeration, abuse, and emotionalism, and that the liquor men have a monopoly of logic, truth, and sweet reasonableno.-s. Well, what a set of numskulls we must all be. For this is how the matter stands: Twelve years ago wo started with a vote for No-license cf 47,000. We used our capital of emotionalism, exaggeration, etc., once more at the next poll, pitting it against the other tide's sweet reasonableness and logic, and lo and behold!. we put in 98.0C0 votes. Three years later, exaggeration and so on being again relied on as against logic and truth, aivd we polled 121,000. At last election, each side using the same means, we polled 151,000, and wiped the licenued bar out of four or five electorates. And all this progress has been made against the logic and sweet ot tue other sid-r! If our opponents have a monopoly of truth, login, and sweet reasonableness, why <?o they not trot a little of it out on my platform? Why do they not make a better usa of their monopoly? For the public of New Zealand are the jury and must decide this question. Mr Isitt proceeded to open derision : The platforms of our party are open to the other side to come along and con-, vince you of their strength and our weak-' noss, but they do not seem to want to take advantage of their strength. What do they do? Of leather Hays, they said : " He has allied himself to a political party." Mrs Harrison Lee came along, and they said : " What business has she to leave her husband and come gadding into this country; why doesn't she stop at home." Of Mr Woolley they said, in reply to his Bledge-hammer arguments : "Heis a pro-Boer." Last of all I come, and I may feay that I shau' be delighted if Mr Thomson will do me the honor of coming forward to meet me. —{A Voice : " He'll wait till you are gone.") Well, he uidn't wait till 1 arrived. He started before I came by saying I get £1,200 a year. I devoutly wish 1 had, but 1 am not guilty, for I never had the chance. But is all this not very significant? What does it matter if Father Hays has alued himself to a political party, or whether Mr Woolley is a pro-Boer, or whether I get &>+,<- a year ? The questions are : "Is the drinking of alcohol felly or a sensible thing:" '''ls the bar for the sale of liquor an institution tnat benefits New Zealand or an injury ?" " Ought we to voto Xacense or No-license?" *' Should | we be abstainers or moderate drinkers?" The lecturer went on to advocate abstinence as a matter of health : No man can become a teetollar from a nobler motive than the welfare of others. But I am a teetotaller for a further reason. I want to live just as leng as God will allow me. And I want to really live—not merely to crawl about with a weak liver or a gouty toe. iou say : " I know i doctors who use liquor and recommend it." Well, I den't.. I know some who take a little. I don't know any who take it and recommend it. Test this. j Ask a doctor, even ii he be a moderate drinker, this straight-out question : "shall I take a little or leave it al ne?" and he will tell you " The less you take the better." Fnty years ago the doctor who recommended liquor as a beverage was the rule. Now he is the exception. Dr Shaw M'Laren said at my meeting in j Edinburgh : "I am here to say that alI cohol is an irritant ooison, withcut the compensating good qualities ot strychnine, arsenic, and other poisons of that ilk. He himself took a little Burgundy. I asked him why, and he replied : " I take less and IeBS every year, and I am aware that for what I do take T have to pay a penalty?" I could pelt you with the names of doctors who say that alcoh 1 is a subtle and irritant noison. In ISO.a manifesto was issued by medical men of many countries condemning the use of alcohol. Why not take tho evidence of these experts? You would auickly take it if it were on the side of your appetite.

From the evidence of the doctors, the lecturer went to the evidence of facts : I am aware that some men drink and live to old age. But when I went to the Greenwich Hospital and saw how hale and hearty the veterans were, I a»U not say : " Leonard, my boy, cannon balls, bullets, and bayonets are the things that tone up the constitution." No. I remembered those that had gone under. The only way to effect a genuine comparison is to take and compare the life statistics of two groups of men, composed respectively of those who took liquor and those who did not. Take on the one side the Oddfellows and the Foresters, and on the other side the Rechabites and the Sons of Temperance, and consider the life statistics of these four friendly societies in Great Britain for tne past twenty or twenty-five years, and it will be found that the average life of the Rechabite or Son of Temperance was from four to seven years longer than that of the average .Oddfellow or Forester. And the Oddfellows and Foresters are not drunken men. If they were they would not be admitted.

TUe evidence of chemistry m also invoked : It_ counts for nothing that alcohol 'makes you feel better. J have known and daijiot

pay their debts. You can't take feeling as evidence. A much-advertised brand of "pale ale for invalids" proves en an analysis to be composed of 90 per cent, of water, 6 per cent, of alcohol, and 4 per cent, of extract matter. Liebig is an analyst of repute, and he says that 2,000 quarts of beer contain only abcut as much nourishment as five barley leaves. Ladies are wont to say that alcoholic beverages are. excellent for ana*mia, and good for the blood, containing irm, and what not. The reply of Dr Ridge is to the point: "My dear ladies, you wm extract far more iron by sucking the kitchen poker for three minutes than by swallowing two bottles of claret, and it is cheaper." Lastly, the moral aspect of the question : If were no drunkenness in the world he (Mr Isitt) would not touch alcohol, because it was injurious, but if it could be proved to him that it was a good thing that could be enjoyed without becoming its victim he would not touch it all the same because of the mischief it caused. The hurt and injury done by alcohol to tne human race was appalling. Joseph Chamberlain declared that it was impairing the health, impoverishing the fortune, and destroying the life oi one in every twenty men, women, and children of the entire population of Great Britain, which mean that two millions were being destroyed "pdy and soul uy excessive use of this poison. And Herbert Gladstone's statement was. that 5 per cent, of the population of the Old Country were victims to excessive drinking. Scores of thousands of .innocent children were damned rather than born into this world. Their opoonents talked of the bigotry and prejudice of the teetotaller, but he could not understand how kindly, decent, thoughtful men and women, with generous instincts and keen sympathies, could know what drink was doing even in this colony, and make a fuss and trouble about giving it up. The sacrifice to the ordinary man was so paltry. He might miss it for a time, and then hardly at all. He claimed no virtue for giving it up. His life v.-ns not less full. He missed nothinc. he and his friends in the cause had t'v consciousness that they were stamliiif en the side of God. and their influence, w.-'i helping their fellows. _ He appealed t.i his hearers to vote No-license. Feveral questions were asked and answered. Mr Tsitt's subject to-night will be ' Tho Child, and the address will deal more particularly with the effectiveness of Nolicense as a cure for the drink evil. Ladies are reminded of the meeting ior women only, the date of which is altered to tomorrow'at 8 .p.m., instead of Thursday.