TEMPERANCE ADDRESS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 293, 8 November 1934, Page 12

TEMPERANCE ADDRESS

BY W.C.T.U. PRESIDENT

There was a large attendance at the address given on temperance matters on Tuesday evening at the Baptist Church, by Mrs T. E. Taylor, of Christchurch, Dominion president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The gathering opened with the singing of a nymn, for which Mr G. H. Stiles presided at the organ, and a prayer led by the chairman, Rev. A. N. Scotter. ' . . The chairman said it was an honour and a great privilege to welcome Mrs Taylor, who was very well-known and had done a great deal for the womanfolk, not only of Christchurch, but of the whole Dominion. Miss V. Willson presented Mrs Taylor with a large bouquet, the recipient expressing her thanks. At the outset, Mrs Taylor said that there was no need to try to convince her audience that the sooner the liquor traffic was swept from the Dominion the better. Even in spite of all that Christ had said, there were to-day some who were lifeless and who did not care, who did not accept Christ’s word as we should. It had been pointed out that many of us had become afraid of trusting to the things that really mattered in life and that we had lost our faith in goodness, justice and mercy—what Christ had summed up in the one word “love.” Many of those who had had faith in prohibition of the liquor traffic seemed to have lost faith, but where was there a custom doing as much harm to children, womanhood and manhood, as the liquor traffic? The women, men and young people should have more faith in Christ and have faith in His teaching. He had promised Life to us and was it not right that we should remove those things which took away much from our lives? Surely when we looked at our young children we had to realise that there were two things that were most dangerous—immorality and the results of the drinking of liquor. Whatever any other country night do, whatever the result of their efforts in the past might have been, those who had worked in the interests of prohibition in New Zealand should go on in their work and have faith in their efforts. The potential mothers of the future and the present mothers who drank cocktails were undermining the potential brain and nervous power of their unborn children. We had to remember that New Zealand, as well as other countries, was breeding from the unfit and many of those children were placed as tho care of the State. Time after time drink figured largely in the family history of these unfit people. Medical reports and reports of commissions had pointed out that drink played a terrible part in the production of those who were condemned from childhood to a life of suffering. What did it mater what America or any other country had done? That was their responsibility, not ours. We had to consider our own problem. Sterilisation and segregation might be all very well, but we had to remove the cause of the birth of those born mentally defective—the drinking of liquor and its attendant evils.

The speaker dealt extensively with methods adopted in England and America to gain new customers for the liquor trade. There were heartless ways in which the liquor traffic had attempted to cultivate the taste for liquor among the young people—a taste that was well nigh impossible to stamp out once it was acquired. We should seek for new and more abundant life for those who were to follow us, and wo should go straight forward and do what we could to bring a greater chance of happiness to those yet to come. Many tempting baits had been held out for the repeal of prohibition in America and not one of those had been carried out or had come true. It had been said, for instance, that taxes would drop and that there would be an increase in duties, but those slight increases had been swallowed up by greatly increased Federal expenses. Mrs Taylor proceeded to deal with drinking at the present time among younger, people in the United States, and Chicago in particular. If the women of New Zealand wished to say that the liquor traffic should defend itself or get out, there would be no liquor traffic allowed in the Dominion. She concluded with an appeal for all who worked in the interests of prohibition not to lose faith, and to continue strongly in their work. . Representing the New Zealand Alliance, Mr T. R. Hodder voiced the thanks of the gathering to the speaker. All were filled with admiration for the faith and courage of Mrs Taylor, who had not been among those who had almost given up the great fight against the liquor traffic, he said. The vote of thanks was carried with acclamation.

Miss M. Moore spoke on behalf of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, also thanking Mrs Taylor for the address.

Mrs Niven and Mrs Findlay pleased the company with a duet in the early part of the evening.