LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4171, 3 August 1874, Page 3

LIQUOR LAW REFORM.

EDITED BY THE HON. WILLIAM FOX, M.H.B. [The Editor of this journal is not responsible for the opinions herein The column is solely under the charge of its special Editor.] BONNY DUNDEE. The Scottish Minstrel of the days of Claver—house, sings “ Open your gates and let us go free, for we dare stay no longer in Bonny Dundee.” And, indeed, if Dundee enjoyed as well-earned a reputation in those days for its whisky-consuming tendencies as it does in the present, there were good reasons for any sober person desiring to quit it. “ Come fill up my cup and fill up my can,” was the invocation of the thirsty poet of that day, as at this day it is of the thirsty, artizan. The city of . Jute is a city of drink. Dour hundred and ninetyeight “drunkeries” (as they call them on the other side of the Atlantic), are yearly licensed for the demoralisation of the inhabitants of the “Bonny toon.” The blood-thirsty Clavers, in all his cruel raids, probably slew not so many as the licensed executioners of Dundee ’slay every year. But the women of Dundee won’t stand it any longer. Following in the steps of their American sisters, they have come to the point, and what the male part of the population have failed to do, they are determined to try. In eight days, 8303 of them signed a petition to the licensing bench, imploring it to grant no new licenses or transfers, and then a deputation took it up in person, and laid it before the Provost and Bailies. And, dreadful to tell, they then opened fire upon that august body, and .right honestly and boldly they told them their minds. Never was a better speech made than that delivered by Mrs. Inglis, who headed the deputation; and well was she supported by Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Smith, and Miss Steele. From Mrs. Inglis’s speech, we give some extracts below. How we wish that some Colonial Deborah would present herself at the bar of our House of Representatives, and give it a similar taste of her quality. The women of Glasgow are determined not to be behind those of Dundee. They have in tho former city been organising themselves to attack the liquor traffic, and on the X3th of April, a public meeting was held, at which some excellent speeches were delivered in petticoats. These are very significant signs of the times. We have long told our hearers that the cause was pre-eminently the woman’s cause; and now that the women are taking it up in earnest, on both sides of the Atlantic, there is little fear but that they will carry it on to a successful end, with the usual pertinacity and perseverence of their sex. “When a woman says she will, she will you may depend pn’t, and when she says' she won’t, she won’t, and there’s an end on’t.” MRS. INGLIS’ ADDRESS TO THE PROVOST AND BAILIES OP BONNY DUNDEE. Mrs. Inglis said : In presenting your Honors with tills petition, allow us a few words in support of it in the name of the women of our town, a large number of whom are so deeply wronged and cruelly oppressed by the curse of the drink traffic. Sirs, the unutterable woes of a drunkard's wife and family and the horrors of a drunkard's eternity are such that if there were only one drunkard in our town, would it not be well worth our while, as a community, to combine for his sake to rid it of the deadly snare ? But it is well known to you that our drunkards are not in units, nor in tens, but in hundreds, may we not say in thousands in our midst, and the aggregate misery involved in this can only,he grasped by an infinite mind. Sirs, is it not the drink traflio that is the manufactory of drunkards * and as long as it is there it will go on producing them, and the number will just be in proportion to the njimber of licenses you grant. Whatmakes the case of the woman so hopeless is that she has no redress. Her husband spends the wages she so sorely needs in the publican’s, and that publican takes them in exchange for that which turns him either into a raging madman or a maudlin imbecile, and thus he lands in his wretched house with empty pockets, and either a terror to his family or a loathsome, senseless mass Sirs, we would respectfully ask you. to leave your comfortable homes on a Saturday evening especially, and come and judge for yourselves whether or no this picture is overdrawn. You are so implicated in this matter that surely we have a right to ask you to do this. Come down, we say, and judge for yourselves of the state of our streets and homes on a Saturday evening. You will see scenes of unutterable horror that will make you glad to hasten home to your quiet, comfortable dwellings. But, sirs, where can we, your petitioners of the working class, flee to hide ourselves * We and our children must see and hear and suffer without redress. Oh. the tyranny the bondage, the heavy yoke that the devil has dubbed with the name of liberty. And it is not wives only, iut mothers, alas! that must, with aching hearts, see their sons and daughters being sucked into the fearful vortex. Young men and young women, boys and girls, think nothing witli their wages in hand ot going into the publican’s for their dram on their way home, and naturally that dram demands another, so that they must he out again to spend the evening in dissipation Thus, a host of young drunkards are coming forward to take the place ot those who are passing away before them into a drunkard’s eternity. (Applause) The question is, can nothing be done to remedy this state of things in our midst ? Are we to sit still and let it go on? Our Government won’t allow human sacrifices to be offered to the heathen gods of India- but why in our own beloved land are tens of thousands allowed to be sacrificed every year to this drink demon? Was there over folly or sin to equal it ? One thing is clear, that the drink traffic is one that can neither be righted nor regulated. Our legislators have been trying it for generations back, but have completely tailed. The very nature ot it defies human power to regulate it, and we dare not appeal to God for His help to regulate an evil and a curse, because His command is, “ Put away the evil from before mine eyes.” We are always told that the people must be educated on the subject up to a certain point before any change can be made.. But who are seeking to teach them ? At the present rate, they will never learn If only tho right teachers would come forward in right earnest to the work, the people would not be so dull at learning their own interests. The great lesson they need to be taught is that this drink traffic instead ot being a (liberty, is a heavy yoke that is thrust upon them, and that the weight of it chiefly rests upon the working people Sirs the better classes live in a different world ; they know nothing ot what goes on amongst these people. But it is time they knowit, God willnot excuse them for their ignorance. We have no patience with those who speak simply ot reducing these public-houses, as it that were all that was needed, whilst everyone ot them is a cesspool, spreading the malaria ot death all around. Sirs, might we not make a bold attempt and try whether a town might not rid itself of this cursed traffic f Who would stand back from the battle ? Would their own contemptible glass of wine hinder any when it's a life and death matter to thousands?; The publicans complain and ask why their trade should be so much interfered with ? But, sirs, we are not all partners In their trade, and have therefore a good right to speak ot it? It is the most unfair partnership that ever was. They pocket tho so-called profits, whilst wo must hcay the burdens. Wo must support these regiments of police, who one and all tell ns the publicans give them all their work. And strangely enoun-h however low their trade may be, they have lords and advocates in their service, and wo must pay them too. To enumerate all tho burdens would bo endless. Sirs, if we cannot get this nefarious traffic put down, wo have surely a right, in the name ot justice, to clamour fora dissolution of partnership, and let the publicans bear the burdens of their own trade as well as pocket the gains. But we ore no enemies of tho publicans and their families ; we are their true friends, and would have them saved from their trade as well as their victims. The greatest curse you can give them is this license: God’s woe goes along with it. , , A few are being saved, but it is desperate work. And how often in the case of many after they have been with much labor got out ot tho fire, like the poor silly moth with the flame, they will bo in again m spile of you. and just tell you they cannot help it ? Sirs, do wo not plainly see that it the people are to be saved wo must all combine and. put out the fire? Are wo not in a dream of infatuation about this whole matter ; speaking and acting like men in their sleep ? The question to be faced and solved is simply this—Are not these thousands of immortal beings of more value than the drink ? It we can prove that the drink outweighs them in value, by all means let:us keep the drink, and perish the thousands; but if we settle :lt the other way, then perish the drink. Our duty is as plain and imperative as the call of God can make it. Let us begin by banishing it from our own houses; they will ho better and safer without it. And let ns come forward to tho work then. Magistrates and ministers, millowners, men amf women, and God upon our side, who will work with, but not without us. Surely we could be ingenious enough to devise means to put out our dreadful fire in Dundee without either infringing upon justice or breaking tho laws of the land, though wo should pension oft’ tho publicans and heave their casks into the sea. You have it in your power to initiate this grand movement. Thus Dundee might ho tho leader in a second grand reformation that would soon spread over the land. . . . And now, gentlemen, God’s ministers for good to us, tho people of Dundee, lias He not put a mighty power into your hands as regards this matter ? Wield It, we beseech you, for Him on the morrow, and, according to tho terms ot our petition, give no new licenses and no transfers, and wood ont all those who have forfeited certificates by breaking tho law. (Loud applause.)