TO REFORM THE DRUNKARD.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 247, 17 October 1908, Page 2

TO REFORM THE DRUNKARD.

TEMPERANCE WITHOUT TOTAL

ABSTINENCE,

NO PLEDGE

A great crusade against drunkenness which has received assurances of strong support from Mr Balfour and Mr AuVten Chamberlain, is (says the London Daily Express) the object of the newly formed True Temperance Association. -

•"■ The promoters of the association intend to work on entirely , different lines from those usually employed by total abstinence and temperance workers. ]

In a manifesto which they will issue in a few days they declare :— "We claim that if a temperance movement is to be really effective it must be inclusive, not exclusive, that it should enrol every temperate man and woman, and not merely the total abstainer, who does not represent more than a small fraction of the adult population. "We p?:opose putting 90 per cent, of temperate men and women of England inj>o the field to fight intemperance and drunkenness.

"We do not believe that the drunkard is to be reformed by ruining the publican. The public house is one of the oldest of all English secular institutions. To drink wine is no more a sin than to eat mutton. It was Mahomet who made of wine a sin. Wine is part of the Blessed Sacrament.

"We claim that the highway to temperance lies m the reform of the public house. The True Temperance Association as one of its immediate works will therefore support the Public House (Extension of Facilities) Bill now in Parliament.

"This Bill proposes to give to every publican the fullest facilities to make his house an eating house as well as a drinking house; a real refreshment house, a restaurant, an hotel, or a club for the workman, just as the fashionable hotel is for. the English aristocrat or the American millionaire.

"We want to give the English workman what his fellows on the Continent have already—a bright, . cherry., refreshment house, with light music, games and comfort. It is because the Continental workman has this that there is so little drunkenness on the Continent.

"We shall hold meetings and shall hope to enrol members from one end of England to the other. We shall appoint our consul in every town. We shall ask no pledge and wear no ribbon. We do not believe 4n proclaiming our virtues to the world."