BLACKBALL NOTES.

Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 10520, 28 January 1903, Page 4

BLACKBALL NOTES.

A public meeting was held in the club room on Sunday evening last to make arrangements for the annual children's picnic. It was decided that this should take place onSaturday, February 21st. A general committee was elected to make all due p;eparations for the event and canvasseis appointed to hunt the wily subscription. Mr C Dixon landed a fii.e 171 b trout the other evening. It was a fine lengthy fish, with too little beam, however, to make a perfect specimen. The coach was able to cross the Eyewash on tho following day, so it 3 effect on the riv. r level can lie imagined. On Monday Mr MeVicar, the Government Inspector of Machinery, visited Blackball and overhauled the boiler and other plant of th o Coal Company here. Mr MeVicar gave ou;---rivets and cylinders a clean bill of health and then hurried away lest a vising liver should hold him a pri .oner.

I The Cabinet had in all probability warned him. Mr Joe Thompson started hay harvesting operations last Saturday, and given fine weather, there is every indication of record crops. On Monday evening Mr T M Smith, of Smith' v Trestrail notoriety, gave an eminently instructive lecture to an appreciative audience in th« School buildings. The lecture was entitled "Some fallacies of Prohibition." Dr Millington occupied the chair and the speaker was supported by Messrs James Irvine, Tom Kinsella, Hurry Davies and other representative men of our township. Mr Tom Thomas, being still absent in Dunedin, was unable to be present. After the opening remarks from the chair _vlr Smith quickly jumped into his stride and launched out into a subject which it was at once apparent he hadm.de peculiarly his o *•'!). He hoped he had prohibitionists in his audience — it was their ears he wished to rreachh — h was their conversion to a rational common sen.c view he most wished to obtain. The prohibitionists argued that alcohol in any form was a poison. What had Sir James Paget, one of England's most celebrated physicians, said? That authority, continued the lecturer, had constantly maintained that alcohol was beneficial to those conditions of life which had been transmitted to us through countless gen -rations and the heirs ofjaioderate drinkers were better in body and mind than the heirs of total abstainers. He could quote many other distinguished names — Sii Lauder Brun ton — Dr Bennett. Their names were legion, every one loud in praise of alcohol for therapeutic as well as other use.. The great mistake prohibitionists made was to confuse drinking with drunkenness. New Zealand, with tlie exception of Tasmania, was the most sober of the Australasian colonies. Prohibitionists siy alcoho* is nationally degrading. Was this a fact . Great Britain, America, Franco and Germany were the four heavesb, drinkers , amongst the nations of the eirth. And yet never before in the history of each of these individual nations had prosperity reached such a limit — had science invention and discovery been so welded toprogressiveevolution. Did that look like degradation and retrogression. It is said that drink j fills our asylums and gaol.--. So far I was this from the truth that from the i history of placps which have tried prohibition it is clear that the very re- ' verse is the case. What had happened in Maine, U.S.A. would happen in j New Zealand. Prohibit l._gal drinks', ing and you have at. once the springing up of secret dens where inferior liquor was sold. The police force had to be increased — the character of the inferior drink wa. what filled the ! asylums and gaols. You could not prohibit thirst and tlie demand would , create the supply. That was why prohibition would lead to sly drinking. Prohibition as a remedy — what is it like. Was it honest? No — because it came as a robb? r. Gladstone, Salisbury, and Bright, men of widely different political views were unanimous in demanding that compensation should accompany any infiingement of the rights of individuals — which, ' righ tly or wrongly had grown up under the shadow of the law. Was it leasonable to argue that because some J people drink too much and because some proportion of crime might be committed by those who had abused alcohol that therefore no one should ' drink at all '. Sir Michael Hicks Beach said that it was just as much an argument to say thab be.au. o some men were immoral that therefore every good 10-king woman should shut herse'f up as they did in Eastern countries. (Cheers). Prohibition would not prohibit. Drink would still be sold, and l hat of a most inferior quality and furthermore the country would lose it.s revenue. Prohibition w s an outward and visible nigr. thab the localities which adopted it had lo.fc their self .controi — ib meant the government of the strong by the weak, and to every . right minded, respectable citizen it was the biggest insult that could be offered. (Applause). Votes of thanks to the lecturer and the chair, brought the interesting proceedings to .. close. . "Dona'd" the mine horse, was fittingly cremated last Saturday. Only friends of the deceased and the Press wereadmittrd. The crematory arrangements were in the capable hands of Mr Will; vn "Wi. ooi ten and from the style r.nd magnificence of the proceedings it might have b'-en the funeral pyre cf the German Emperor. No expense or fire-wood was spaied. I might just mention that the wind was in a suitable quart r, blowing up the valley. At the time of writing no asphyxiated diggers have been brought in.