TEMPERANCE COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 20310, 19 October 1929, Page 23

TEMPERANCE COLUMN

(Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.): We are as Justified in speaking definitely upon the impairing effects upon human life of moderate doses of alcohol as we are upon the value of food} of fresh air, or of exercise—facts upon which the medical’ world feel bound to speak with no uncertain sound! Alcoholism is one of the great co/cfficicnts in all the damaged life and disease met with day by day in the national life of this country. On this point they had the evidence of the chief medical officer of tho Board of Education, of the National Insurance V Commissioners, and of the Army authorities.—Sir Alfred Rearce' Gould. THE PIONEER PLEDGE. i The ‘ Australian Sunday Visitor;’ a Roman Catholic paper, contains the following comments on the Pioneer pledge “ ‘ For Thy greater glory and consolation, O Sacred Heart of Jesus! — for Thy sake, to give good' example, to practise self-denial, to make repa J ration for sins of intemperance, and for the conversion, of excessive drinkers, I will abstain for life from all spiritous drinks.’ “To 1 make -this ■‘heroic offering’ all that is required is to repeat the words solemnly and sign the ‘ Heroic Offering’ card...lt is not a vow, and does not bind under pain of sin—but ip a generous, freely-given offering to tho Sacred Heart, binding us" by the honour of our word and by tho strong bonds of lovo and fidelity. _ Make it on'behalf’of poor drink victims. Such victims may bo among your friends and near relatives. Or make it to obtain some great grace from God, to bring down God’s blessing on our country, and to help to stem .the torrent of intemperance, even though you have never been guilty of excess yourself. But think well on it before you make it. If you resolve to make it,_ let your resolution be like wrought iron. Close the door for ever on drink. Lock and double lock the door, and fling away the key. You will be astonished at the blessings that will troop after you.” . THE RUM RATION GONE. Striking evidence of the progress of temperance knowledge is the announcement that the British Admiralty has decided to abolish the rum ration from the Navy. It was long overdue* Leading authorities of the Navy havo over and over again pointed out that the practice was born at a time when alcohol was supposed to possess some certain physiological advantages, but, science and experience have disproved thoso beliefs. After an exhaustive test Admiral Lord Jellicoe reported to the British Cabinet that “ liquor drinking causes a loss of efficiency in our gunners amounting to 30 per cent.” Though belated, we arc glad to have this further proof that temperance teaching is correct and is making progress.—‘Everybody’s Monthly.’ LADY ASTOR’S CONVICTION. WOMEN AS PIONEERS. “ I myself do not believe that the public men of the country will really tackle this question of drink until the women make them. There is so much the women havo made the men do. If tho public men will not face the question of the drink traffic, the public women will. Women have come into tho field to help men to reason out this question. Up to this time they have never reasoned with us, so how could thev expect ns to be reasonable? But now thev have got to reckon with us as well as reason with us. Men are bowed down by a political past. We women came in with a fresh point of view. Men have so much political tradition behind them they are heavily handicapped. Women have none. They bring into politics a fresh mind and a fresh point of view. ‘ ‘ They say that young men see visions, and old men dream dreams. But they have left out the middleaged. Wc neither dream dreams nor see visions. We face facts. We also try to find the way out. _ There is a wav out, and the way out is to tell the truth about drink, to face tho facts about it. The fact is drink _ promises to its victims heaven, and it gives them hell. Let us do all wc can to put it out of our national life. — 1 The Pioneer. ONE SECOND. Mon have run one hunclred yards in ten seconds, that is thirty feet- in one second. Now, a motor car travelling at thirty-five miles an hour, which is a very common pace, travels fifty-two and a-lndf feet in one second Experts have figured out that if a sudden demand is made on a motor driver, that it takes the most alert driver one-fifth of a second to apply his brakes. Very careful experiments have proved that oven one glass of whisky on the average person will slow their effort to such an extent that it takes three-fifths of a second to apply tho brake; in other wards, be is twenty-one feel nearer you than if he had been without even one drink. The dangerous driver is not the one who is drunk, but the one who is exhilarated with one drink, or careless and unobservant -because of several drinks. We have to remember that an Englishman travelled a mile in sixteen seconds last week, and, while that is a world record, yet it reminds us that, whereas thirty miles an hom’ was astonishing ten years ago, that fifty miles in the same time is now a commonplace. All of my readers have seen a car go by like a flash, which means anything from fifty to seventy feet to the second, and one drink under such circumstances is fatal. Why not urge your driver to sign the pledge? THE. LURE OF LIQUOR. “ If we examine closely wo shall find there is nothing on which more pains are bestowed by mankind than on wine. As though Nature had not liberally furnished water. And we purchase at great pain and expense a liquor which deprives man of his reason, renders him furious, and is the cause of an infinite variety of cirmes. GOING TO THEIR DEATH. . Upton Sinclair, in his latest book. Money Writes,’ has this mportant sentence; “ All my life I have lived in the presence of fine and beautiful men going to their death because of alcohol. I call it the greatest trap that life has set for the feet of.genius; and I record my opinion that the Prohibition Amend ment is-tho- greatest step in progress taken by America since tho freeing of the slaves.”