EXAMPLES OF NO-LICENSE VINDICTIVENESS, COARSENESS, AND FANATICISM.

Evening Star, Issue 13099, 4 November 1908, Page 6

EXAMPLES OF NO-LICENSE VINDICTIVENESS, COARSENESS, AND FANATICISM.

It is but right that the public should know the extent to which No-license advocates are prepared to go in advocating their scheme. For coaiseness and vulgarity it is impossible to outdo the utterances which are published herewith. When, however, the No-license party betake themselves to writing to private friends as Air Nicholls has done to Air Thomson’s friend, to sending absolutely incorrect statements to America which are now published, and to writing private letters in the coarsest and most vulgar way possible, it is only fair that the public should know. The following is from the Christchurch Prohibition League, and was also contained in a letter addressed to the Rev. William Thomson : Christchurch Prohibition League, Worcester street, , Christchurch, Oct. 30, 1908. The Rev. W. Thomson, — If you quibble, or practise the evasive tactics in which you seem to be a past master —judging by your actions Since you became a recognised official defender of the Liquor interests of this country—we shall not hesitate to brand you as a coward or something worse, and to regard the challenge that you have publicly flaunted as being a piece of the most disreputable kind of electioneering bluff.—Yours faithfully, T. W. West, Organiser. The No-license party profess to help Temperance, but they themselves are most intemperate. The following is another example •THE REy. T. TRESTRAIL, the Wesleyan Minister in South Dunedin, writing to the * Evening Star,’ December 13, 1905, spoke of those who voted for Continuance us follows : Have you forgotten the motley crowd who voted for Continuance ? You have among this minority that pitiable but not few of outcasts, dwellers of drinkmade slums, public-house bummers, the tag-rag and bob-tail of society, the drink-sodden, blear-eyed, and red-nosed debauched men and women constantly verging on alcoholic insanity. HOW AIR G. B. NICHOLLS DESCRIBED THOSE IN FAVOR OF CONTINUANCE. Writing in February he said : Any man or woman who is 011 the side of the licensed liquor trade is on the side of legalised degradation, legalised cruelty to women and children, legalised murder, and legalised indecency. It is scarcely possible to believe that so-called Temperance writers would use such language. Drunkenness is bad, but the use of such language is much worse, ihe Dunedin public will form their own conclusions. [By arrangement.]