THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11152, 29 December 1896, Page 6

THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —No stronger proof of your implacable hatred of the prohibitionists and their beneficent object could be possible than that afforded in your issue of Thursday morning last. Tho pen that wrote your leader —“ Peace and Goodwill ” —had hardly dried ere it was used to reproduce part of a most stupid satire upon prohibition, written by some lialf-demeuted contributor to an English magazine. In serving up this literary hash you express a hope that it may benefit prohibitionists, “whose ideas require broadening.” The sneer at our narrowness is entirely out of place, for this charge recoils upon yourself with boomerang force. In relation to this subject of' prohibition the narrow view is yours. Your range of vision is so limited that it takes in only the liquor trader. You protect his vested monopolies, you advocate his sordid and selfish interests, and you uphold his death-producing business at the expense of the suffering mass 'of humanity which our vision includes in its wider sweep. You are writing on behalf of the wealthy few, whereas we are pleading for the many and the weak. Yours is the narrow view that utterly -'ignores the numberless victims of the drink traffic, and is oblivious of the sorrow, and suffering that lie open to our broader view, the lesseniug of which is at once the motive and inspiration of our movement. However, it was not so much the intellectual feebleness of your article that impressed me as the extreme bitterness Towards prohibitionists, of which it was -such a signal proof. May I ask why this little antiprohibitionist squib was inserted between two leaderettes dealing with Christmas topics ? Was it assigned this singular position iu order that its dark shading might bring out into bolder relief the brighter colouring of the other two articles P Evidently there is to bo no “peace and goodwill” for us. That leader of yours included all except the no-licenso advocates. We are utterly reprobate, and unworthy of the kiudly sentiments expressed towards others in your Christmas leader. However, one might have reasonably expected that you could have “nursed your wrath to keep it warm ” until Christmas memories had lost some of their fresh-ness.-Vl am, &c., C. PALK.

[Our correspondent has, of course, entirely misunderstood the spirit in which our remarks were made. — Ed. L.T.]