TEMPERANCE REFORM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11825, 30 November 1901, Page 6 (Supplement)

TEMPERANCE REFORM.

ME CHAMBERLAIN' ASKS FOR MODERATE PROPOSALS.

3£b. Chamberlain* lately opened a new temperance hall at Birmingham, and subsequently addressed a large temperance gathering in the Town Hall, urging temperance advocates to unite on some moderate scheme of reform. . While congratulating the Birmingham Temperance Society on the success which bad attended it* efforts to secure temperance by moral and educational methods, he said they would not be likely to believe that he was* inclined to depreciate political agitation. But it must be "evident, that any improvement in the habits of the people, any diminution in intemperance, had been due to the work of individuals, and not to the work of the politician. They were sometimes told that matters were as bad now as they were seventy years ago, but he was not inclined to accept- that view. He had no sympathy with pessimists, either in that matter or in anything else. . . He hoped thev were all striving against drunkenness. There had been a remarkable chance in the habits of the British people as compared with years ago, when he was regarded as a milksop who went to bed on , his own feet. It was no longer gentlemanly i w get drunk. That change was due to moral causes.

NEITHER SIDE STCCESSECL. He defied anyone to point to any Act of Parliament passed during the last seventy vears which had had any effect in reducing .drunkenness, although it would be easy enough to point to several which had had the effect of increasing it; for instance, the Act which established grocers' licenses, and trie legislation in 1869. Both parties in the State had been eager to have the credit ot some great legislative reform. Both had tried their hands, and the result had been that both had burnt their fingers. When a Government of which he knew something was blamed for not introducing drastic legislation be should not be surprised if lis thoughts went back to the fate of previous efforts, ana that some consideration for its own self-preservation induced it to caution. At the same time, no impartial man would pretend that there was no need for legislation to mitigate the evils of intemperance and diminish its extent.. But if any such legislation was to be successful it must have a larger force of moderate opinion behind it than "had been the good fortune of any legislation in his experience. It must not be a political question. They must go gradually, and recollect that most- valuable proverb. " Half a loaf is better than no bread." (Some cheers.) It might be that some of his statements were not quite palatable —(laughter)-- but he wished to tell them truth as he blieved it, and he would warn temperance reformers that S3 long as they rejected practical measures, so long as they treated moderate drinking as a crime, and proposed to take away property without any compensation, so long the 'legislation of the future would have no snecess.

A STRIKING SCirEiEE. Mr. Chamberlain added that when he was younger and more audacious he proposed a scheme which, if it had been adopted, would have made a striking change in the habits of the people. It was to eliminate the idea of profit oh the sale of drink and to enable local authorities to take over license.'!, like water and gas. Three-fourths of the licenses in Birmingham might have been extinguished, but the scheme was defeated, and lost opportunities had an uncomfortable way of not returning. Having paid a tribute to Earl Grey's scheme, Mr. Chamberlain recalled Sir William Harcourt's Bill, which ended in disaster to the Liberal Government, and. he believed, to the temperance cause. With regard to the Royal Commission, he agreed with the greater part of the Minority Report, but entirely disagreed with its assertion that there was no justice in compensation. Such proposals as were made by Lord Peel were waste of time. Promoters of that kind of legislation were like Sisyphus in the fable. They might roll the stone a few yards up the mountain, but it would come thundering down upon them again. Mr. Chamberlain suggested that other towns should follow the example of the Birmingham magistrates in reducing licenses ■with the assistance of the brewers, and urged that magistrates should have control over bogus clubs.