THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE TEMPERANCE PARTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8988, 28 February 1888, Page 3

THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE TEMPERANCE PARTY.

Sir,At the present moment the position of the temperance party is peculiar. It is evident that even the intelligent and accomplished, in many instances, scarcely apprehend it. We are thought to be narrowminded and arbitrary ; hence I venture an apology. On the surface it is evident that the abstainers have no personal end to gain, while our opponents are the trade, supported by the more thirsty of their customers. The battle is between those who are sensitive to the troublesome thing called conscience, and those who are not sufficiently alive to its existence. These are the characteristics of the two parties. It cannot be wrong in a man to abstain for the sake of himself and others ; but it may be heartless, and even cruel, for one not to deny himself for the sake of his suffering fellow-creatures. What do we find with regard to the publichouse system ? All men are agreed that the evil done through the existence of these houses immensely preponderates over the good. To the credit of human nature, be it said, there is scarcely a publican who likes his business. They would all leave it to - morrow could they support their wives and families by other means as easy. The abnormal development of the bar trade is at once the profit and the curse of these establishments. But the law is inimical to drinking shops. All the existing restraints are applied to these. The hotel portion of the business, on the other hand, is encouraged. It is universally conceded that the Temperance Committees have produced a wholesome revolution in the hotel accommodation of our city. In many of the towns of the old country there are temperance hotels where the comforts provided are better than in the hotels of Auckland. So long as we give licenses to sell alcoholic liquors, upon which the profits are from 40 to 100 per cent., so long we make it impossible for the improved temperance hotel to exist. Do away with the bar trade, which every right-thinking man only tolerates, and we shall pave the way for such an improvement of the hotel as we have hardly yet contemplated. One great obstruction to this reform is the hallucination which so many still labour under that alcoholic liquor is necessary as a beverage. They speak of the use of it as if it were an advantage, and forget it is one of the acquired vicious habits of society. It cannot be beneficial in health, and it is frequently disastrous in disease. Were it an innocent drink, the language used would be applicable ; as it is, it becomes amusing. And if, as statistics show, three-fifths of our existing lunacy, three-fourths of our crime, and nearly the whole of our pauperism spring from indulgence in these noxious drugs, no man is justified in maintaining, either by word or deed, the continuance of such an evil. On the ground of our common manhood, we demand self-sacrifice on the part of so-called moderate drinkers. Let us extirpate those habits which are the main source of the squalor, poverty, tirade depression, prostitution, misery in families, blighted lives, and petrified feelings. Let us forsake the way of disaster and ruin and seek the simple and homely paths of virtue and happiness. The indulgence of such habits and the support of such customs are strangely incongruous with the benevolent activities of the present age. For the sake of the poor little waifs, growing up all over the country (future voters in our democracy), alike insensible to their privations, and unconscious equally of the opening avenues to a criminal career, and of the sweet possibilities of humble piety, let us destroy the busy agencies of their calamities. Who does not weep over a mother spending her last shilling on the gin that is destroying the young life and opportunities of children who have as yet done no wrong ? Shame upon men and: women, shame upon the country which licenses a system which brings such a harvest of ruin and death i Actuated by sympathy, and with no special benefit to gain for themselves but that of the pleasure which results to Christian hearts in seeing men living and happy, as they ought to be, the abstainers have unfurled the banner of prohibition in Ponsonby. Sooner or later, it must be the great social test question in New Zealand, as in all other Anglo-Saxon communities. I will not, I cannot, believe that my fellowcountrymen can remain indifferent to the existence of the publichouses, which contaminate the blood and marrow of society. The time must come when those now engaged in the traffic, after it has been swept into the comparative oblivion of past history, shall wonder that they could ever have participated in a trade so noxious to human beings, each one of the unfortunates bearing as they do the consecrated name of brother or sister, son or daughter, husband or wife. I appeal to the brewers and the other lords of position and capital to liberate their monies from this demoralising trade, and throw them into channels through which, if they do not bring such a large return, will at all events be fuller of blessing to mankind. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."—l am, &c., John Buchanan.