THE CASE FOR ALCOHOL.

Evening Star, Issue 14635, 3 August 1911, Page 2

THE CASE FOR ALCOHOL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Anti-No-license “ is hanging on to his theme with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause. but he is pretty well through now. He dare not claim that the marvellous religious genius' of the Jews was the result, of their- very moderate drinking. Though we might very properly Haim it as the result of abstinence, for in Deuteronomy, chapter xxix., verses 5 and 6, it say-: of the Jews: ‘‘And I have led you 40 years in the wildeTncvis. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong * drink, that ye might know I am the Lord thy God.” Thus, it was their abstinence that led them to the knowledge of fled, not their drinking. At the. close of this 40 years' abstention they earned all before them. Nor daro ho make claim that the literature and art of Greece, the science of !aw of the Homans, the ardent love of liberty of the Teutons was caused by the drink they used He, contents himself by inferring that the lack of some of these things on the part of the Mohammedans and Hindus is because they are meetly abstainers. Greatly to the distress of all concerned. some of these Mohammedans and Hindus are endeavoring to improve themselves by learning to drink, this, io quote tho Hon. Sir K. N". Baker, LieutenantGovernor of Lahore, as per cable of March 7 last, “involving, as it did, prince and peasant, educated and uneducated, in common ruin.” The Mohammedans and Hindus are inferior in the mass to our noble selves, because of their inferior religion, youthful marriage, and other causes.

Is "Anli-No-liccn.se” prepared to ciedit the many very excellent qualities of the Chinese to the fact that they smoke opium? That would be just about as sensible as attributing the good qualities of the Jews, Greeks, .Romans, etc., to alcohol. Your correspondent has dropped his untenable assertion that alcohol drinkers live longer than abstainers, but clings to the delusion that the alcohol “adds to the joy of life.” Any number of people, from Lord Charles Beresford downward, who have tried both abstaining and moderate drinking, declare that the abstainer has by far the better time. He enjoys a higher average of health, is keener, lives longer, has a more benign old age, _ saves money, is always master of himself, and escapes the danger that always hovers near the moderate drinker of sliding insensibly into the immoderate use of the drug 'alcohol. That there is no more to justify the drinking alcohol titan there is to justify the use of the morphia syringe is what the New Zealand Government rightly teach our children in the schools. Why docs not “Anti-No-licemse ” get up an agitation to have this altered to “ alcoholic liquors are the great source of the joy of life, therefore everyone should use them." A nice chance he would have.—l am, etc., Progress. August 2.