MR, BEATTY AND THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10243, 22 September 1896, Page 3

MR, BEATTY AND THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

10 THE EDITOR. Sib,— 1 ask you kindly to allow space for a discussion of the issue raised by the letter of the Rev. W. Boatty, published on the 17th instant. Ea seeks to shelter Christian people in the drink trade from the censure of prohibitionists on the plea that their trade is legitimate. Mr. Beatty is too acute a reasoner not to know that the use of the word' legitimate' iu such a connection is altogether misleading. Slave-holding was at one time legitimate; would Mr. Beatty, on that plea, have barred the abolition of the slave trade ? It was legitimate some years ago in England to employ boys of tender years as chimney sweeps, climbing through the flues. Docs Mr. Beatty think that, on that ground, it was wrong on the part of Lord Shaftesbury to bring such an inhuman trade to an end? The drink trade is legitimate: that it exists under the sauction of the law. But that settles nothing as to its moral character; there is scarcely a villainy under the sun that has not at some time been legitimate. The question is, 'Ought the drink trade to be sanctioned by law?' This is the crux of our position as prohibitionists. If Mr. Beatty does not understand this it is not creditable to his intelligence. If he does understand it his defence of the traffic as legitimate is not creditable to his honesty. In the name of enlightened science and enlightened Christian principle we say emphatically that the drink trade ought not to be sanctioned by law. It exists to supply no healthy national need; it lives to be a most prolifio source of moral dangertothecommouwcalth. Iu the light of to-day it stands in a tenfold blacker shade of infamy and condemnation than even the slave trade which has been outlawed by the common consent of Christendom. No man can now be engaged in the trade without being aware that he is ministering to the degradation of his fellows, and for a Christian man to make gain out of a business that has suah a sickening record of blood and heart-break and tears, is to be guilty of an outrage on the first principles of Christianity, If Mr. Beatty's beer should turn out no better than his theology I should say he had bettor lot beer-making alone. Exegetically and theologically his reference to 'God's good gift of wine,' etc., is on a level with the harangues on 'cursed be Canaan' with which certain ministers in '.he Southern States were accustomed to soothe the consciences of slaveholders smarting under the attacks of abolitionists. It is a dangerous experiment to attempt to keep subscriptions to the Church in flow through hands soiled by an unholy trade at the expense of a libel on the character of Almighty God. Tho Rev. W. Beatty rushes before the public as the champion of common sense, decency, and humanity. Personally the greatest outrage I know on common souse, decency, and humanity is that a Christian minister should dare in the light of to-day to quote the precept and example of Christ in defence of a traffic that has done more to deface God's image and wreck the souls that Christ died for than any other trade that exists.-I am, etc, William James Williams. Pitt-street, September 19,1890.

Sir,— Referring to the letter of your esteemed correspondent, the Rev. W. Beatty, in your issue of Thursday last, I quite agree with him that the use of intemperate language is an evil that we should seek at all times and as far as possible to avoid. Oil the other hand, I feel bound to say that I am extremely disinclined to criticise severely the utterances of those who perhaps have looked more closely than some of us have into the evils of a traffic whose ruinous ravages wo all must deplore. Even though it be admitted that some of the advocates of prohibition may sometimes have been hurried, through the strength of their feelings and convictions, into the use of language that has passed the limits of conventionalism, or even the limits of wisdom and charity, shall we now shrink from the blows that fall on the heads of those who lead : we who would fain escape tlio hate and scorn that are poured upon them, and who dread to place ourselves in the tiro front of the fight-shall we, who know less than they do of the extent and gravity of theevil which they seek to vanquish, be hyperoritioal in the judgment we pronounce ou their utterances ? I am persuaded that if we knew but a tenth part of what the trade in liquor has done and is doing, even in this fair land of ours, the homes it lias destroyed, the hearts it has broken, the families it lias desolated, the genius it has blasted, the industry it has arrested, tho brains»it has driven to madness, the legion of diseases, and loathsome vices that everywhere- lUtcutl it, wo should m less

about intemperate and exaggerated language,, ■; and. abase ourselves . before high t- Heaven, p because of the awful i paralysis that Imp?i■ smitten us, and prevented'us from. rising ( in.s our strength to suppress the evil and crush' - that trade out of existence. These 'are' no *? intemperate words that I am using, but the words of truth and soberness.' ' ,-.-.-. Iu regard to the speoitioi charges whioh . your correspondent brings against my frieud Mr. Isitt, I am not aware that during his, late mission in Auckland Mr. Isitt made uso of the expression 'liquid damnation,' /yet even,had he'done'so, ■ I cannot feel sure . that < his characterization' would have been much i more scathing than that of some of the 'ancient prophets of the Lord. Mr. Beatty represents Mr. Isitt as having said that all' engaged in 'the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquors were unclean pariahs and outcasts. Now that is just what Mr.' Isitt did not say. He stated that there wer» publicans whom he knew were kindly, sympathetic, tender-hearted, honorable men, despite the demoralising surroundings of the trade in which they are engaged; but, he pleaded, and in my judgment at least he pleaded rightly, in the interests of a hightoned morality, against the Church's willing participation in the fruits of a traffio that is too often built up on the debris of human hearts, and homes, and happiness. How else) I would ask can the Church 'proclaim with unfaltering voice the need of, strict integrity,' 'denounce all attempts to proht by another's injury.' Let the Church of God, at least, be in a position to say,' my hands are clean.' Mr. Beatty's illustration, drawn from the offering of the woman who was a sinner, is • singularly unfortunate. To plaoe a poor, penitent woman, crouching in sorrow and self-abasement at the feet of the Christ, in the same category with the ordinary rumseller is a licentious misuse of a language that cannot be too strongly condemned. Is it a fair statement of the case that prohibitionists 'brand a whole class on account of the evil doing of a few Is it only the few who tre responsible for the widespread misery? How many publicans are. there in Auckland • 1 wonder who are not habitual law-breakers?. ...... svs*. '■./• i

• Ask the inspector of police in some moment when he is disposed to be confidential, Are there five who never sell drink to au already drunken man; who never sell after hours) who never sell on Sunday except to bona fide travellers, and keep strictly within the four corners of the Act? If there are, then Auckland enjoys an enviable distinction, for I take leave to question whether that can bo said truly of any other town in the colony. Mr. Beatty pleads for a rigid enforcement of law. So have we pleaded for it till we are wearied. It would seem as if the law cannot be enforced. Everyone knows that the law is broken, and that it is continually broken, but how comparatively rarely can any conviction be secured. lam not blaming the police. I honestly believe that some of them at least are trying to do their duty in this respect and to get the law carried out in its integrity, but they are checkmated at almost every point. - Let those who are found _ drinking in public-houses during prohibited hours swear that the drink was given to them, and the case at once breaks down. How then can the law be rigidly enforced? Sir, surely it is high time that we ceased to censure and criticise the efforts and utterances of earnest men, whose hearts are filled with a burning zeal for the good of their kind, and who, in the crasade which they are leading, have personally nothing to gain and much to lose. If we shrink from incurring the odium and hatred which falls to their lot. let us at least stand put of their way. I cannot ask less than that, bub I do ask that, in the name of God and of one common humanity.— am, etc, Harry R. Dewsbury. The Parsonage, Grafton Road.