THE TEMPERANCE VEMENT IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9025, 11 April 1888, Page 6

THE TEMPERANCE VEMENT IN AMERICA.

MR. R. T. BOOTH ON HIS RECENT i, TOUR.

During the past week (says the Sydney I Telegraph of March 31) Mr. R. T. Booth, •who, accompanied by his wife, left Sydney fifteen months ago for a tour round' the world, has returned with interesting accounts of the latest development of the temperance question in America. Having revisited England, as well as his native country, he has also something to say about" the work which he handed over to others when he first set out for Australia, now between four and five years ago. Mr. Booth has returned in excellent health, and states that he iB desirous of carrying on his labours for temperance in these colonies if the way to continuous work opens out to him. Failing to realise his hopes in this direction, he will probably re-enter commercial life, which he quitted for the platform immediately upon becoming a total abstainer. As a matter of fact, he states that he has now under consideration an advantageous business offer, but hesitates throwing up the work for which he has proved himself so eminently qualified, until he is satisfied that there is not scope for his platform labours in Australia, where he has decided to spend the remainder of his life. " Has your tour been from a temperance standpoint a successful one?" asked our representative. "Yes, speaking generally," replied the lecturer, "I may say that it has. I demonstrated a fact upon which I set considerable value—namely, that wherever I conducted a mission in places that I had previously • worked* I found it possible to duplicate my former success. In many of the large cities of England this was actually done." "Are the results of your former work still apparent?" " I was surprised at the stability of the work. On the night of my reception in Sheffield it was publicly stated by the secretary of the Gospel Temperance Union that 80 per cent, of the 50,000 persons who signed the pledge during my first mission there are keeping it. I should state, however, that in Sheffield the work is better organised and more thoroughly carried on than in any other place in the world. They have no fewer than 100 volunteers, who frequently visit the ' converts.' At Newcastle-on-Tyne, up to the beginning of my work, now eight years ago, there had been, a steady increase from ; year to year in the number of publichouses. Since then there has been a decrease of 139. In many other cities I found similarly encouraging results."

You stayed at Honolulu, I believe ?" " Yes, I spent five weeks there, and was the first to secure the signatures of. Hawaiian natives to the total abstinence pledge. But I made no impression on the king. Are royal heads so hard to turn ?" " What is the position of the temperance question in America to-day 1" "The United States are still away ahead of any other country in the matter of temperance legislation, and consequently of temperance sentiment also. Amongst the Christian people, there is but one universal demand, and that is for prohibition. They have passed through the various stages of moral suasion, Gospel temperance, ana local option, and the climax has come. But the motive power that is some day, I believe, going to weld public opinion into this legal anchor has been removed from the ethical to the political furnace. The third party, which comprises the most ardent political friends of temperance, is an institution that has come to stay. With them there is in the varied politics of the great Republic but one issue for immediate settlement, and that is the necessity or otherwise of prohibition."

" What relation do the two great political parties bear towards the question ? " The Democratic party is pre-eminently the whisky party. It was the slave party before the war ; and as it was in the beginning it is still and ever will be. The Democrats, sir, stand flat-footed for the liquor-traffic. The Republican party contains in its ranks nearly all the best friends of temperance reform. In fact, every instalment of temperance legislation — the local option laws, the civil damage law and others, have come from the Republicans. In the State of Maine, however, one party vies with the other in adding more stringent enactments to their already virtuous code. This, of course, is exceptional but it is helpful to the cause of temperance. An interesting amendment of the law in Maine is a provision for imprisonment, or imprisonment with the addition of a fine but, mind, imprisonment anyhow, for sly-grog selling upon a second conviction of the offender. " But what about the prohibition party as a political organisation ?" " The first move on the part of the prohibitionists was made four years ago, when they ran a separate candidate for tne Presidency. It is an admitted fact that the votes drawn upon that occasion from the Republican party in New York State turned the scale, and placed Grover Cleveland at the head of the nation by the insignificant majority of 1600 votes. Governor St. John, the third party candidate, polled*if I remember rightly, 30,000 votes, and generally speaking it is correct to say that every one of them was drawn from the Republican side. The consequence is that the leaders of that party have just now no love for temperance agitators." " What has been the effect of these political developments upon temperance work

" Thousands of our staunchest supporters, men who had in the past contributed by every means in their power towards the advancement of the cause, have been estranged. I have already said that active temperance work has shifted from the arena of the churches to that of the political platform. Thus, no one who is a Republican first and a temperance reformer afterwards will identify himself with the temperance movement: so strong are the party ties of politicians. And this applies, remember, to a very large body of men who would, under other circumstances, take the platform in advocacy qven of prohibition. No matter how firmly a . politician may believe in the justice of stringent temperance legislation, with the third party confronting him he is afraid even to ally himself with the moral suasionists. Thus temperance work on the old lines has been practically starved out, and as far as I know, whilst America used to teem with persuasive advocates there is to-day only one man in the country conducting missions such as those I held in Australia. But the work that has been taken out of the hands of the moral suasionists is being carried on with all the bitterness of political strife by the third party. Tha educational aspect of the question, however has been taken up by the women. In 26 ox the States they nave introduced a statute providing for lessons upon the nature and effect of alcohol, in the various public schools. The influence of their organisation — the Women's Christian Temperance Union— in favour of total prohibition, and Mrs. Willard, its president, is one of the foremost representatives of the third party. These women, however, carry on their work alone, for, as I have said, the men are afraid to join them. You will thus see what very serious changes have recently taken place in the temperance reform. The contest on its present lines will be inspired with new life at the next Presidential election, when the third party will again put a candidate in the field, so that whatever other odds the Republican party may have against them they will lose many of their own supporters by the recurrence of the temperance question. I may add that the Republicans have endeavoured to compromise matters with this terrible third party. They want them to accept ' high license' as a substitute for prohibition. High license means the application of restrictive rates upon publicans, and where the system exists as much as £200 a year is occasionally charged for the boon of a license. But the third party is not in the spirit of compromise. They positively refuse all overtures. Whether they are right or wrong I will not attempt to say. Personally, however, as a practical temperance reformer, I willingly accept every instalment of legislation in the true direction." Are you satisfied with the position of your friends in Australia ?" " I am glad to find them still active, and to know tnat in some directions advances have been made. At the present time the temperance party in Australia is perhaps even more industrious than the temperance party of England. The fact is that the Home Rule controversy has for the time* overshadowed every other reform in Great Britain, and Ireland will evidently have to he free before England is sober."