THE PREMIER AND TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11368, 8 September 1897, Page 6

THE PREMIER AND TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.

The following letter appears in the Wellington Post of Monday:— Sir, —I believe nothing has done the cause of prohibition uioro harm than such intemperate and unjust language as that which you say this evening was used by tho Rev L. M. Isifct in Melbourne respecting the Premier and temperance legislation. We have a great deal to thank Mr Seddon for in the matter of temperance legislation, much of which he would never have conceded to those who think no policy effective with him but .that of bullying. The sooner temperance people protest against the utter unfairness with •which he has been treated by certain persons in this connection the hotter for tho temperance cause, lie has' never hypocritically pretended any personal sympathy with prohibition, but he has maintained that the people must rule in this matter so far as public opinion will support legislation enabling them to do so.

The stoutest prohibitionist statesmen when in power in this colony could get no further, otherwise they are responsible that we did not get complete popular control long ago. From the earliest existence of the Alliance Mr Seddon has, at his several parliamentary contests, declared in writing, in response to Alliance questions, that he was in favour of the popular vote respecting the existence of the liquor traffic, and without compensation. And this he did when the temperance question was much less popular than now, and in a constituency- where conspicuously his own political interests would have been more certainly served by declaring .for compensation as a means of obstructing popular control. ' On the floor of the House, also, he has consistently protested against compensation when it has been proposed as a means of blocking his direct veto legislation. i Directly.we can prove to Mr Seddon that the people will support him in. all that the Tempevance Party, rightly asks for he will give it .us, though not himself a prohibitionist, and the most extreme prohibitionist among us, if in his place, could not do it without that support. There is no political party more likely to give it us than that which he leads, and which he is not likely to cease to lead until the party itself is overthrown. The folly and madness, therefore, of doing everything which can he done, and especially by exaggerations and untruths which grossly wrong him, to excite in him bitteT. antagonism to ns should bo obvious. , Whatever any man’s faults may be, when their arraignment takes this form, it cpmpels those.who have any sense of honour, and would join in a just arraignment, to liy' to his' defence. , Statements, for example, t have .been reiterated upon the public platform respecting Mr Seddon’s “progress ’’ through thq 'King Country, which npt only upon the face of them, but- also upon, perfectly trustworthy evidence, are utterly and shamefully false. It is by such means that the cause of prohibition, is :being ; dragged in the mire iii the estimation of persons who have no political nor personal affection for Mr Seddon, biit hold that the unreasoning antipathy and' recklessness which readily believe and voice any false and exaggerated charges which'the spirit of evil can suggest constitute a greater immorality. “The author of Clause 21 ” is an expression which has passed into an opprobrious epithet. But whatever the facts may be, people who have been swayed by it may reflect that the charge conveyed by it remains to this clay unproved, and that some such provisions as it contains are a necessity upon the Statute Book, and were contained in the Direct Veto Bill which Sir Eohert Stout introduced on behalf of the Alliance. In most of such matters I have observed generally that the forcefulness of the denunciations is in the inverse ratio of the sufficiency of the evidence, but that the former sways the audiences. I have heard some speakers publicly say things of other persons which I have felt at the time they would not .dare to say if those persons had been present. But they and their audiences have seemed to regard it as fine and fearless, when really “Dutch courage” is the thing of which it has been most ; suggestive. It is to this sort of thing that the good cause of prohibition is being just now mischievously sacrificed. These 'things are written in no spirit of unfriendliness towards any persons engaged in that cause, hut.because the time has come when the thoughts and feelings of a very large body of sympathisers with it about the evil which is thus being wrought need expression. Some of those responsible for it have rendered the cause magnificent service in other respects, but to give a good pail of milk and then kick it all over profits nothing. Against this the time for public protest has fully come.—l am, &c.; Edward Walker. Wellington, Sept. 1, 1897.