SUMMARY OF A PASTORAL LETTER ISSUED BY HIS GRACE ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD, S.M..

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 10 November 1928, Page 7

SUMMARY OF A PASTORAL LETTER ISSUED BY HIS GRACE ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD, S.M..

I ARCHBISHOP OP WELLINGTON ! AND METROPOLITAN. ! Wellington, October l.hlh. 19ii8. I As Metropolitan of this Eedesiasti- ! cal Province L deem it my duty to again give the Catholic body (it New Zealand right guidance on the. matter of Prohibition—National Prohibition —with which it is threatened. I hope such a calamity will never bel'all it. The position of prohibition advocates is altogether untenable. Il they argue that alcoholic drink is an evil in itself, they run counter to Scripture and the emphatic teaching and example of Christ. If 'they argue that alcoholic drink is not an evil in itself, then regulation of its traffic is surely the moral course to adopt. f Hut if prohibition is urged on account of the missuse which some make of alcoholic drink, then, to be morally consistent, the same people should demand the suppression of many other things, for instance, printing, theatres, dancing and numerous other uses; but this is against reason and common sense. REFORM IS NEEDED—NOT PROHIBITION— I I reform wise and moderate and patient in the light of experience, education, and true morality; in the interests of the great body of the public:, and especially of moderate men, who constitute, the majority of the people. To branch New Zealanders, who arc generally a sober community, as a drinksodden people, demanding drastic legislation, is a vile and monstrous calumny. The whole scheme of national, prohibition is a gieat step backward; it would be an odious and inquisitorial tyranny, foreign to the basic principle and spirit | of British law. I | PROHIBITION IS INDEED FATAL | TO' LIBERTY, I because it involves a serious outrage agains't the natural, rights and liberties of individuals, and contemptuously disregards the claims of dissenting minorities. It is also fatal to TEMPERANCE, though not a few sopbistically confound temperance with prohibition. Temperance; is a | growth, like all moral laws, in the t individual and the community. Prohibition proposes to establish temperance according to the Criminal Code. Temperance is positive, and appeals to man’s sense of self-control, to his t reason and conscience. Prohibition is I negative, and appeals to the sense of I fear, t<> pains and penalties, and utterly ignores man’s habits and education. Temperance is the development of . man’s righteousness and self-control. Prohibition is the reduction of man to a position of compulsory national total abstinence by the criminal law. Temperance is the heritage and blessing of a free people. Prohibition is the yoke which a country constructs for itself when it confesses its inability to selfcontrol. and from which it will take long years to free itself. Temperance is the badge of self-respect and orderliness'. There are many other cogent reasons why enlightened New Zealanders should reject prohibition. From the purely temporal standpoint of efficiency, pro- : bib Lion does not prohibit—as the example of America outstandingly proves —.ami never xvill prohibit so long as men ■ exeieise their birthright in a. matter that God has left them free. From the ethical point of view temperance, or self-ioutool and moderation in the use of things, is a moral virtue, and as such postulates free choice in the exercise of, I it. PROHIBITION IS THE SYMBOL | FOR HYPOCRISY AND DECEPTION. All the secret encouragement of sly drinking, the utter luck Q-f control, the absence of all authority, the vile decoctions served, are sure to generate a low moral atmosphere of great mischief. And such places of sly drinking greatly appeal to the young. Once let a young man become contaminated by < the moral tone of ‘the “sly grogs, he ( will be damaged morally, if not. utterly ; ruined. Prohibition will undoubtedly , generate lawlessness. Its extreme char- . acter. its far-reaching measures, its r enormous penalties, stamp it as a I grinding despotism—the fruitful parent j of disorder. PROHIBITION 1 ,fe A« DESPOTTC AS < any LAW OF THE WORST , DESPOT. v It utterly disregards and tramples I under foot the undoubted rights of n minorities, whom it grossly insults by p the Wav it flaunts their wishes and de- < strovs "their privileges. The minority e under it would obey or suffer outrage- t ous penalties. Wherever it prevails it t is monstrous ill every way and grossly \ insulting to the intelligence l of the lj* l ge a minority. If it is carried in New Zea- d land we may expect thao- shortly the s land will be filled with dens, all of which a will be '.schools of hypocrisy, evasion, d

lawlessness and deception. I trcme begets another. I rohibition would plunge us into a course oi idly bringing turmoil into the polities. ol the country, perjury and evasion into xhe courts, and'deception into the peopie Let it not be argued that sly orog” would become an impossibility when throughout the whole of the Dominion there would be no nquor to be pi ecu red, for what could prevent the manufacture of sly grog m the country and its introduction by a WIDESPREAD SYSTEM OF SMUGGLING? But in anv case this plea is no. excuse for its inherent and rapant tyranny. In a publication regarded as authoritative by the No-License Pai tj . these words occur: —“I recollect on one occasion, in conversation, one of the brewers said to a prohibitionist, l hate the drunkard ns much as you. The prohibitionist replied: ‘That remark defines the difference between ns. You hate the drunkard; 1 nate he drunkard-maker.’ It is this very extenuation in teaching which is sure to arid to the list of the drunken: Nay, it destroys all morality. Tins teaching j would render morality impossible. An- 1 archy and lawlessness would he rampant. “1 hate the druukard-ma/ev. In terms of logic, he hates Die hotelkeeper who sells wine, the barman who serves it. the commercial traveller who represents wholesale houses winch.: stool* wine. A STEP FURTHER. He would hate the wine-grower, the labourer in the vineyard, and the carter, who carries the wine, an«l so on. In large drapery establishment., certain persons practise shoplifting. Prohibitionist. teaching would exonerate them

!aml blame tlie drapers'. “I hate not the thief, but' the thief-maker.”" 'Such a doctrine would abolish the Ten Commandments. To shift the responsibility fi'ojn the man .who' drinks .la excess to other persons is to encourage sympathy v illi the drunken, and still more is tin’s w nought- by. absolutely stopping the supply, not only to the few lawless, but to ibe whole community. This remedy is fatal to morals-. It is fata! to set np a compulsory and ascetic total abstinence society for tlie people an! To, enforce its riile.s by a drastic ciiminal code. A true educational development , undoubtedly means thru the whom of .nan’s attributes are to be brought into .true harmony Here lies the worth oI i die individual and THE TRUE GREATNESS OF THE STATE. ! .V mere negation such as prohibition - would never accomplish this; m lact, I a, greater violation of its principies can hardly be conceived. This National Prohibition craze, is ; mainly the work of a handful of fanatics. . LIQUOR FORJ MEDICAL SACRAMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES. I. shall be told that we run no dauger in New Zealand of our being deprived o-f alcoholic liquor for medicinal, sacramental and industrial purposes. We have had the assurance of the leaders of the No-License League together with the Government, that satisfactory regulations will be made to allow wine to be procured for these pur-j poses, but let all good Christians be timelv warned. 1 am not at all convinced that these regulations will be • satisfactory. First of all, wliat are theyi' Nobody has seen 'them, and ’ they are to be made. I understand, only in the event of National Prohibition being carried. IS IT REASONABLE to ask Catholics to vote for National Prohibition on the strength of regulations -not yet made, and about which we know nothing—whether they will be satisfactory or otherwise? But even though the present .Government may be perfectly sincere in its avowed purpose to make regulations that will be entirely satisfactory, what guarantee have we that in a lew years, once prohibition is the law of the land, another Government —on the ground, say, that the exemptions are being abused—may not insert an amendment I in the Act doing away with all exemptions, even for sacramental purposes? We have had too much experience of “rush” legislation on the part of our Parliament not to fear similar “rush” legislation in regard to sacramental wine. j I consider, therefore, that I would be failing in my duty did I not warn our people of THE DANGEROUS POSSIBILITIES that are before them. Are we ill this pretended free land, to depend for the exercise of a natural and divine right on any fallible and fallacious Govern- j ment or set o-f politicians ? Such a I thing is an insult, an outrage and an j indignity. Ik implies a prying and in-, quisitorial intereference with every | altar in the Dominion. I call, there-1 foie, on all Catholics in tlie Dominion i to vote dead against national prohibi-» tion. as they value common tsense and liberty. Let them band with the best men in the Dominion, the majority ol good and moderate men, ‘to- stamp out this noxious thing, national prohibits, for ever. Let such inquisitorial and grinding tyranny never curse this free land. The Catholic who votes- for national prohibition in the present condition of this Dominion is true neither to his common sense nor his love offreedom, or his loyalty to his holy religion. Let him east his vote patriotically and religiously against it, in this and every other election. Let him. not become the slave of a false system inspired bv narrow-mindedness and fanaticism. .