NATIONAL LIBERTY AND TRUE TEMPERANCE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 245, 3 October 1911, Page 6

NATIONAL LIBERTY AND TRUE TEMPERANCE.

(By- Professor Salmond.)

Controversy being inevitable, and Stted also to serve a purpose in the ascertainment of truth, it is a pity that disputants become angry and begin to impute vile motives and evil hearts to each other. There is then an end of all profit ; theh vision becomes blind ; and antagonists, losing self-possession, hit out wildly in the dark. Yet it is hard to avoid this. Indeed, inos(t men dislike the balanced fairness 2 that makes the atmosphere feel cold and relaxes the fighting muscles. But if mutual imputations of evil motives is trying, it is still more trying when one side assumes that all nobility of sentiment is on their side, and that their opponents are in league with the Prince of Darkness. This is very common in the prohibition controversy. Prohibitionists are certain that they- are inspired by the purest and loftiest sentiments, as indeed they’ often are : and were purity of sentiment a guarantee for soundness of judgment, who could stand before them! But they assure us, sometimes quite plainly, oft-times by indirect allusions, that their opponents are men without hearts or feelings. are blind to the miseries caused by intemperance, have no proper enthusiasm of humanity, have no moral zeal, assume their attitude of hostility because they have a secret passion for drink and will not sacrifice an animal appetite to a higher end, have shares in a brewery and are afraid of pecuniary loss ,and so on. They cannot think it possible that their opponents are animated bymotives as pure and lofty as their own. Why, then, do we assume an attitude of hostility to a movement which means so well ?

First of all, we dread the prospect of this young nation plunging into a form of plausible, emotional legislation, such as has been tried many times and has always failed, and must needs fail; and we know how much easier it is to get into a quagmire than to get out of it without damage. Personal freedom of thought, speech, action in the guidance of our home and social life i.s a priceless boon .purchased at a great cost of tears and blood, and we find it threatened by a harsh legislation which, to be successfully carried out. must involve a power to enter our home and search our sideboards and our c ellars ; and we note with concern that prohibition has a passion for forbidding and restricting. following up every success by further demands for fresh restrictions to make the previous efficient. We protest against a statute that will make it a crime for any man in normal health to lie found in posses sion of a bottle of wine, and, for that grievous fault alone, put him in the dock with the thief.. We desire to hold the laws of the land in honour. ami dread the passing of such measures as will make our legislation an object of contempt to many, and creatT’ in their minds an attitude of defiance ; and such must lie the issue- of the imposition of harsh restrictions which receive no support from the moral conscience. M e do not wish to see the country divided in two hostile camps scowling i defiance at each other, the one | with the severe frown of Puritanic rigour, the other with the indignant glare of souls smarting under a wanton wrong. We cherish sincere alarm at the prospect of “drug stores’’ at every street corner, much occupied in “dispensing” prescriptions, easily obtainable from certain I duly qualified medical practitioners, I who will regard it as a laudable i virtue to use any means to evade, or j outwit absurd and unjust laws. \\ e i do not wish to see the country flood!cd with falsehood, perjury, moral i cowardice, and duplicity, such as iaiT inevitably called forth by laws which are too represshe .and run a tilt against common human nature and convert innocent acts into ! crime. We fear the creation of a moral pestilence walking in dtirk- . m-«s. in truth worse than the destruction that wasteth :it noonday. :eW shrink with becoming dislike from the introduction of a regime that will inflict a feeling of humiliation on the greater part of the manhood of the land by bringing them j under a moral tutelage fit only for children and savages. \\ e fear that the success of prohibit ion may convert us into a nation of smug, selfsatisfied Pharisees. well assured that we are a model to till mankind, in the vanguard of humanity .a holy nation and peculiar people, while tit i the same time we are laden with all the common sins of men. and distinguished only by being sober under compulsion. But enough for an instalment. although we have not told ret half the tale.

There is no use saying that the above is a mere fancy picture. Perhaps it is : and perhaps the picture drawn of the millennium to follow prohibition is also a fancy picture. That is not the point at present. Their convictions anti ours alike create certain motives which move us respectively in opposite directions : and our motives will bear comparison with theirs, both in respe«•: <.f the ills we deprecate, and the benefits we wish to reach or to conserve.’-