PROHIBITION ISSUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18234, 30 October 1922, Page 9

PROHIBITION ISSUE.

ROMAN CATHOLIC SPEAKERS.

THREE ASPECTS ADVANCED.

MORAL, MEDICAL, ECONOMIC.

(Extended Report by Arrangement.) The fii'st of a series of meetings on the prohibition issue addressed by Roman Catholic speakers was held at the Town j Hall" yesterday afternoon. There was a very large attendance and the speakers i were enthusiastically received, both at the opening and during the course of their remarks. The Rev. Father Wright presided, and. in introducing the speakers, said that the Rev. Fathei\G. Zurcher came with the highest credentials from his ecclesiastical superiors in America and he had been, permitted to say mass in each Roman Catholic diocese he had visited in New Zealand. Mr. Charles Todd was a Dunedin business man, and Dr. A. B. O'Brien was a medical practitioner, practising in I Christohurch. Speaking on prohibition from the standI point of an American Roman Catholic, (Father Zurcher claimed that the foundaI tion of the groat prohibition movement there was laid in 1884, when 100 Roman Catholic bishops of America met and held the third council of Baltimore, which issued the following appeal : " We call upon all pastors to induce all of their flocks j who may be engaged in the sale of liquors, Ito quit that dangerous traffic as soon as i possible, and to mako their living in some more honourable way." By condemning the liquor traffic as something not very honourable, and by appealing to all Roman Catholics to get out of it, the Roman Catholic Church laid the moral foundation of American prohibition. Judge's Opinion of Liquor Laws. Moreover, the for prohibition was laid by a Roman Catholic, Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the liquor case of Thurlow v. the State of Massachusetts, he gave this decision: j " Disease, pestilence and pauperism are not subjects of commerce, although some- , times among its attendant evils. They aie not things to be regulated or to be trafficked in, but to be prevented, as far as human foresight and human means can guard against them. If any State deems the retail and interna] traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its inhabitants, and. calculated to produce idleness, vice and debauchery, I see nothing in the constitution of the United States to prevent it from regulating and restricting the traffic, jor from prohibiting it altogether." I The attitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to the prohibition issue was nexU dealt with. • Father Zurcher said that an American Roman Catholic, troubled in conscience as to his duty in this matter, wrote to Pope Leo XIII. asking if he were allowed to vote for prohibition. The reply was that if the writer thought prohibition would be a remedy for intemperance, ho was not only at liberty to vote for it, but it was his duty to do so. (Applause.) During the 37 years Father Zurcher had been connected with the prohibition movement in America, he had worked in harmony with the clergy of all denominations, Protestant and Roman Catholic. He believed this was the first time for centuries that all Christians had been united in a great moral movement and he hoped that in that association for good would be found the germ out of which would grow church unity and the universal church. That would surely be *. magnificent lesult from the prohibition movement. (Applause.) Early Christians and Abstinence. Thirty-live years ago the few Catholic temperance workers were often denounced as fanat cs consorting with Methodists and the like. (Laughter.) But in 1887 Archbishop Ireland went to Rome, receiving from Pop? Leo XIII. a statement which said: "Let all priests shine as models of abstinence. We cannot too highly recommend your societies in which the memberspledge themselves to totally abstain from intoxicating liquors; nor can it be denied that this is a trulv efficacious remedy for the pestiferous evil of irtemperance.'' It was to be noted, said ,tho sneaker, that the Pope called the liquor trade a pestiferous evil, a pestilence. Every other pestilence that affected a community was dealt with as such and stamped out, and the same relentless and annihilating war should be waged against the liquor trade. (Applause.) Father Zurcher proceeded to, a discussion of the attitude of the apostles to intoxicating liquor and the teaching of the scriptures on the subject.» Ho said total abstinence was the practice among the early Christians, i When it ceased to be a general practice among Christians, it continued to be rigorously enforced by church law for 12 cr 13 centuries on all fast days, as during tho 40 days of Lent, and the four weeks of Advent, during which there was half fast on food, but full fast on alcoholic drink. The Medical Viewpoint. The medical aspect of prohibition was the subject of Dr. O'Brien s remarks. He quoted Cardinal Mercier as saying that there was need for all men of goad will to stay the plague of alcohol and such ifc must be considered, in the light of the -latest cicntifio pronouncemants on its nature and effects. Narrowing down the issue, the beverage use of alcohol was now condemned by medical men. but as a medicine on the, druggist's shelf, it still had a nlace. Alcohol was a drug.and, in strength such as whisky or brandy, it was far too dangerous to he handed out by a bar-tender without any knowledge of the purchaser's condition or state of health. Many people had been killed in sudden illnesses by the mistaken "kindness" of friends whose remedy for all ailments was a drop of spirits. Alcohol was a narcotic drug, just as were ether or morphia, 'and because of this it derived its value as a m< dicine. But taken at random as a beverage, it depressed or put to sleep, so to speak, thos? very functions which were most essential in life. On the mental side, aftera very transitory excitement, it put to sleep the very highest intellectual faculties aiid those latest acquired in Ihe evolution .of man. Thus, even by small doses, a man's sense of judgment was'impaired, his selfcriticism weakened ; so, also, was his sense of responsibility for his actions. Thus a man would quarrel with and even injure those, whom he loved best in the world; he would divulge secrets, abuse confidences, and commit' shis, which ,he would not dream of if he had full control of himself: so that, as Thomas A. Kempis had f>nid, a merry evening made a sad morninc. Larger doses of alcohol caused drunkenness and everyone knew the horrors which often followed on that state.

General Effect on the Body. The general effect on the body' was that, as Solomon said, it acted as a mocker. Its effect on the heart wan to inhibit the vagus or nerve which controlled that organ's beat. Normally, the heart gave 100,000 beats a day, and so hard-worked a muscle required all the rest it could obtain. But the effect of a glass of whisky was to placo out of action the nerve which slowed the heart, which then raced away, with only poor control, so that 2oz. of whisky caused the heart to beat about 8000 extra times in 24 hours. Put another way, the heart used energy that lifted 120 tons a day. one foot, but the use of a small quantity of alcohol ini creaead this daily lift bv 15 tens, a most unnecessary and weakening burden for pn orpan whose strength it Aras highly! • necessity, to preserve." I In the same way, when exposed, to cold„ •' nature required that the surface of the : body and the less important parts should j he poorly supplied with blood, so that i heat should not be lost unduly. Alcohol I cut off this control: the surface of the body was flushed and the heat which nature would conserve was lost. So thnt in all these wavs alcohol caused a disturb- j ; ance in tho vital functions of the body, j , The claims of the prohibitionist* were, j-well founded that the beverage um o|J

alcohol should be discontinued and that a drug- so potent should only be administered Dy a medical man or one versed in the knowledge of tho use and abuse of alcohol. (Applause.) The economic aspeofc of prohibition was dealt with by Mr. Todd. He said that New Zealand spent the colossal sum of £7,500,000 on alcoholic drink; in 1921, priced at wholesale rates. At retail prices, plus loss through inefficiency, the, total was alarming and would probably equal the sum—£ll,ooo,ooo—required by the Government to meet interest and sinking fund, old age pensions, widows' and war pensions. This extravagance on liquor must cease if the country was to avoid a depression similar to that of 30 to 40 years ago. The first step in the direction of putting the country on a sound financial basis was to cease spending money on useless luxuries. The sale, for beverage purposes, of the dangerous poison, alcohol, should be The liquor trade declared that the Government could not afford to lose the revsnue accruing from the sale of liquor. This wa% a fallacy as the " trade" did not produce ■wealth. It took from the people last year fully £9,000,000 and of-this amouni the Government received £1/(00,000 ajj revenue. If this money were spent in other ways, the Government would secure as much revenue and the people far more value. Moreover, there would not be the awful wreckage caused by arink to clear up, at a cost to the Government in up. keep of mental hospitals, orphanages, hospitals, and gaols of £2/00.000—the sum spent on these institutions last year. LAEGE MEETING Efl* EVENING. SACRAMENTAL WINE PERMITTED. There was another very large meeting in the Town Hall last evening. Mr. W. J. Holdsworth presided. Speaking especially to Roman Catholics, Mr. Todd said they need have no fear that prohibition would deprive their Church of altar wine. Legislation safeguarded tho right of the churches to continue the use of wino for sacramental purposes. The leading prohibitionists in .New Zealand had'declared themselves in favour of preserving that right. Bishop Cieary had stated that the use of sacramental wine was not threatened by prohibition. In a recent letter received by Mr. Todd, Bishop Cieary said that the great moral movement of prohibition was still dear to his heart. (Applause.) 11 In the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. i'odd continued, there, ware many sincere and conscientious men foi prohibition, and many equally sincere and conscientious men against it. This proved that the liquor question was one for free thought and action, that it was a citizens', and not a church, matter. The speaker emphasised the importance of enrolling, and also seeing that the rolls were clean. Dealing with the State purchase and control issue, Mr. Todd said, if carried, the cost to the country would be from £12,000.000 to £15,000,000. Even were it desirable to purchase tho business, the country's finances would not carry this addcj burden. The province of Saskatchewan, in Canada, and the State of North Carolina, .in' the United States, had tried tho State control experiment with disastrous results. Officials were • corrupted, and the people became eo disgusted that they voted it out by two votes to one. Another experiment was tried in the 1 Northern Territory in Australia, where the controlling authorities made a loss of £124 last year on the sale' of £84,000 worth of liquor, and had since disposed of the hotels to private people. The Carlisle experiment in England was successful only because the hours were lessened. Other parts of England showed even better results under private ownership for the same reason—lessened hours for selling. Alcohol as a Drug.

Before opening his address, Dr. O'Brien vigorously repudiated the statement, which he said was in circulation in Auckland, that Father .Zurcher was a - discredited priest. • Father Zurcher was a Frenchman born in Alsace long before the German occupation. It was that latter event which caused Father Zurcher to leave his homo for America. 'It was humiliating, the speaker added, that the Roman Catholic Church should bo dragged in the mud by being associated, as it was in th,e speech of some with, the liquor traffic. His Church had nothing to do with the traffic, and the traffic had nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Church.

Turning to tho scientific aspect of the question, the speaker said the day would come when, just as bleeding had become a rare operation and one for experts to perform, the supplying of alcohol would become rare also, and would be entrusted only to experts. Alcohol would be found only on the drug shelves, aiH would be dispensed only by men who knew what they were doing. Many people kept in their homes a drop of spirits for use in case of illness. But they had no right to administer spirits unless they knew what was wrong with, the patient. To give alcohol to a fainting person without knowing the cause of the faintness was a criminal action.

Doctors were prescribing alcohol less and less, even for use as a drug. Some persons asserted that alcohol was a food. The only claim that could be made for alcohol wag that when burned in the body it gave heat and energy, as food did, but the body rejected it as a food, and the moment it was taken into the body it began to be thrown out. If a man took two ounces of alcohol at a certain hour on one day, there would be nothing left of ifc by the corresponding time next day. If the name of food could be applied to a substance which could nofc regenerate the body, which could not be stored by the body, but which the body tried all the time to get rid of, anaesthetic ether could also be called food. Dr. O'Brien concluded with an indictment of the beverage use of alcohol. The Position in America. Father Zurcher said he was greatly surprised to find on his arrival in "New Zealand that we were not getting a correct account of prohibition in America. He shrewdly suspected where such distorted views of the effects came from, as they had in America 32 organisations whose object was to vilify, and nullify, if possible, prohibition. But he was there to give the truth about prohibition. Taking the official figures as to infantile mortality, in New York in 1921, the rate ot infantile mortality was 7l per thousand; in Canada in the same year, it was 85 per thousand; but in the City of Montreal, the only one in Canada with the retell liquor traffic, it was 155 per thousand. But in poor, wine-drinking France —and many people complained that wine drinking did not count —the infantile mortality rate was 200 per thousand, as against 71 in prohibition New York. (Applause. )

Beforo prohibition was carried in America, they used to have 65 Neal institutions to cure drunkards; now there were only three, and they were poorly patronised. The House of the Good Shepherd in Buffalo used to receive" four to five drunken women on the average every week, and now. jt received only one drunken woman every three -or four months. The former breweries and saloons had been turned into factories and retail stores respectively. ,

Reply Regarding "Drug Fiends." A pamphlet circulated in New Zealand stated that prohibition had made. 5,000.000 drug fiends in America. But the official figures as to the imports of drugs into America supplied a eiufficient comment on the statement. . In 1919 12,0000z. of cocaine v.as imported, in 1921 the figure was only 7000oz. In 1919 15,C000z. of morphia was imported and 3000oz. onlv in 1921 ; in 1019 316,000'tb. .of opium came into ..the United States arid in 1921 96,0001b. In the same period the importations of coca leaves, from which cocaine was extracted, decreased from 795,0001b. in 1919 to 104,0001b. in 1921. Those were the official returns from the Government in Washington. It was stated that doctors in the United States were prohibited from prescribing alcohol arf a medicine. This was false, though, as a matter of fact, the American Pharmacopeia, the official list of medicines, no longer contained alcohol or whisky, and three-fourths to four-fifths of the doctors practising in the United States no longer

Mfcook out a license to prescribe alcohol | medicinally, though the prohibition law gave them the privilege of doing so. It j was said also that prohibition was opposed to the liberty of the subject, hut the Americans settled that question in these words: "For the sake of hundreds of thousands of people getting ruined through strong .drink, and the misery brought by it to* hundreds of thousands of homes, I ;im perfect]v willing to make a personal sacrifice and give up this little bit of alcohol." (Applause.) Father- Zurcher said that much space could be occupied with quotations from the great and good who had spoken and written in condemnation of the evils wrought by alcohol and in urging abstinence from it. The following were but a few of many who could be quoted :—Pope Pius XI. in a letter dated April 10, 1922, and addressed to Father Syring, president of the Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Germany, defined alcoholism as •" one of the greatest enemies of individual and social well-being." Cardinal Merry del Val in 1914 wrote: " The Popes in "these latter times have proclaimed the necessity of prompt and efficacious remedies against the deadly evil of alcoholism." Cardinal Dougherty urged the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America which mot in convention in Philadelphia on August 7, 1922, to " give assistance toward the enforcement of the prohibition law." Nothing could exceed in vigour the condemnation poured by these men upon the great enemy of mankind, alcohol; nothing could exceed in solemnity the gravity of their warning; nothing could exceed in passion the power of their appeal to all to fight this great scourgo of tho race. (Applause.) Attempts were made to mislead Roman Catholics by asserting that the passage of a prohibition law would interfere with the provision of sacramental wine. That was not so and no difficulty was experienced by the Roman Catholic Church in America. In New Zealand the responsible leaden* of the prohibition party had this month repeated their former statement on the matter, and had pledged themselves in writing to oppose any regulation that would interfere with the practice of any religious body. There was thus not the slightest truth in any allegation that prohibition would interfere with the satisfac tion of the legitimate demands of the churches, and their rights in the matter of sacramental wine would he jealously preserved.

THIRD MEETING THIS EVENING. FURTHER ASPECTS OF QUESTION. Another meeting will be held in the Town Hall this evening at eight o'clock. Mr. Todd will speak on "Prohibition in New Zealand • No-License Areas," Dr. O'Brien on " Prohibition from the Viewpoint of a New Zealand Doctor," and Father Zurcher on " Some Objections to Prohibition." Mr. R. A. Laidlaw will be chairman, and the addresses will be preceded by community singing.