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Evening Star, Issue 16995, 18 March 1919, Page 4

Wz deprecate the extreme language that is sometimes used in advocating Prohibition. There is plenty of room .and occasion for strong language in dealing with the licensed traffic; but the Rev. Mr Raton, in our judgment, was extreme. He is an earnest and capable "man, so capable that wo wonder even more at the nature of the appeal he made to his Christchurch hearers than wo do at the wording of it. There was no need to call down tire from heaven, whether to wither or to blast. All he needed to do was to point to tho facts of cur daily life. If he needs must as a preacher have a text, why did ho not choose the words “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall ho also reap ” ? Life collects its own accounts, and seldom forgets to render its bills. It is that thought that prevents many who have no scruples otherwise from entering tho liquor trade. They say frankly that they believe there is a blight attached to it. They know- that if the bar trade flourishes it flourishes at tho expense of others, and they fear life’s reactions. They know also that there are families that have engaged in the liquor trade and have apparently suffered no injury: bat they have an uneasy feeling that Ood (or life) does not always collect His accounts in 1919 or any other particular year, but that sooner or later collected they are. A great many people will vote Prohibition, not because they dislike liquor, not because they ever received any injury from it. but because they know somebody must suffer if the goes on, and they cannot be sure that they or theirs will not be the sufferers. In fact, they have an uneasy feeling that, since “you can no more run a timber mill without using up logs than you can run the liquor traffic without using up boys, 1 ’ if they vote for the liquor traffic justice will see that their boys are used up by it. That fear is only too often driven home by life. How common a thing it is to know a man whoso only feeling towards Prohibition and Prohibitionists is one of exasperation. Ho enjoys his liquor, enjoys tho social life that liquor ministers to, suffers (as far as he can judge) no loss or injury whatever, and denounces the Prohibitionist as a wild fanatic and an altogether intolerant and intolerable man; and yet a few years afterwards that same man will bo found in the ranks of the Prohibitionists. When asked for the reason for this amazing change, he will say: “Tho ‘trade' have got my boy.” That is the thing that is making Prohibitionists every day. All the wiles and clever arguments of either tho "trade” or the Moderates and their supporters break themselves against that in vain. That is what will drive thousands to vote for Prohibition, in spite of Compensation. Their boys are worth more to them than that they may .have to pay from the Consolidated Fund, even though the sum total (.should exceed four and a-half millions sterling.

Rev. Mr Eaton and Prohibition.