TEMPERANCE NEWS.

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2005, 18 February 1913, Page 1

TEMPERANCE NEWS.

WHAT LABOUR LEADERS SAY,

_ "The damning curse to the labourer is that which gurgles from the neck of the bottle"."—T. V. Powderly. "Labour leaders are alive to the menace that the saloon is to the progress of working men. When the Toronto Labour Temple was founded, a clause was put in its constitution totally excluding intoxicating liquor from the premises."—James Simpson. Delegate A.F.L. '

The' destruction of the poor is their poverty, and the present licensing system is the chief cause of the present-time poverty, debasement and weakness of the poor."—John Burne, M.P., English Labour Leader. 'So far as my observation goes, drunkenness was at the bottom of all misery (in working men's homes), and not the industrial system or the industrial conditions surrounding the men and their families."—Ex-U.S. Commissioner of Labour, Carroll D. Wright.

"The use of liquor and its influences have done more to darken labour's homes, dwarf its energies, and chain it hand and foot to the wheels of corporate aggression than all other influences combined."— S- F" r £y aV6iick * President of National liiight Hour League. "If a brewery is closed down, in its place springs up a factory. " If a saloon is closed, in its place comes a store. It is simply a process well known to union men, the same process as follows the introduction of machinery. It is a readjustment, a changed condition of society. Almost every disturbance in the ranks of organised labour can be traced back to some connection with the saloon." —John Mitchell, Vice-President A.F.L.

'The purpose of tho trade union is to raise the standard of living. What about.the saloon? Is there a man who will dare to say there is any influence from the saloon except to lower this • standard, and make man less manly and woman less womanly P I don t know a solitary principle for which the labour movement stands, but that the saloon is on' the other side ol the question."—John P. Lenuon. Treasurer A.F.L.

' The day will come when practically oyery Labour leader will be a total abstainer. Why, just a little time ago across, the line the bartenders in one town, organised a total abstinence society Why shouldn't Labour leaders do the same? I would hot. have you conclude that I think there are no good Labour leaders who drink Ihere are, some of the first in the ranks. Yet it seems to me, other things being equal, tho man who is the total abstainer is the best man.— Rev. Charles Stelzle, Delegate A.F L —Advt.