LAND AND PROHIBITION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11049, 29 August 1896, Page 2

LAND AND PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDXTOE.

Sib, —Your correspondent E. A. Early has appeared in your columns with a letter on the above of sixty-six lines; but where the title comes in, except the latter half, I cannot see. It seems to be a sort of argument to prove that the millennium would arrive if we could only have prohibition, and that any sort of Government or tyranny would not matter, utter corruption, or the reign of privilege and pharisaical cant. We could .bear it all and should bear it all, as we are sure to go to heaven if we are only prohibitionists. Now, I should recommend Mr Early to read his Testament and what St Paul says about charity. Next, the pretty little tracts issued by the prohibitionist Press about the prosperity of the prohibited States and the towns indicated should- be verified by American journals, some of which tell different tales. Indeed there have appeared in the Lyttelton Times extracts that have cast a different light upon the subject. As for tales told by flying travellers through a country, they may always be taken with a, very large grain of salt. . As far as appearances go, you can go through some towns in New Zealand where, if dead stagnation is taken as evidence of virtue, there is no sign of life. But Puritanism is, essentially, intolerance, and justifies every means to the end—persecution, and even lies, slander and cruelty. Lastly, if we could get men to be less selfish, and to know that no individuals possess the whole of the truth, they would recognise that no single reform will mitigate the ills of humanity.—l am., &0., *W.G.