INTEMPERATE TEMPERANCE

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 131, 7 August 1895, Page 4

INTEMPERATE TEMPERANCE

The Christchurch Sun has the following :—Men and women who are able to sit down and calmly considc: questions of great moment are com pel led 1o ask themselves the question What sort of rule would it be if met such as Isitt and Taylor had the uppe: baud ? Drink may be a tyrant; thert may be giant evils connected with the traffic; the path of drink may be strewn with corpses of men, womec and children, murdered through the abuse of alcohol. This we are read' to admit; but even so we who do no: abuse or even use the drink are fret and able to exercise our wills. Should we be left in the enjoyment of this if the men who now insult us, and who indulge in a grossness of conduct that is disreputable when on the public platform, were to have tho framing of the laws under which we should be compelled to live? We say that all reasonable men and women will aafc themselvos these very questions, and on their answers will depend the success or failure of the tempranco cauee. In Christchurch the temperance escutbchiou has been blotched and smeared, the name of temperance has been dragged in the mud. It will take years to remove from tho people's minds the shamelessness which has of late characterised its advocates and their pitiable catspaws. The Isitts and the Taylors are not destroying the liquor traffic; they are building it up. To-day in Christchurch it is mora reputable to be tho keeper of even the George-street bar than to be known as an extreme Prohibitionist.