WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7915, 26 September 1911, Page 1

WHY HAS MAINE REVOLTED?

EVIDENCE AGAINST PROHIBITION, Religious and public opinion in Maine has for many years been gradually veering to tbe conviction that prohibition ia alike fallacious , and futile.’ At first people loudly imagined that prohibition, would bring in tbo millennium, and the clergy of Maine believed that no-licenso and prohibition would be an aid ■to church-going and develop loftier religions ideals; they accordingly invoked "the beggarly elements of th.o law, and after many years discovered , their mistake. That Methodist preacher, the Rev. C. S, Gumming, declared, as far back as 1900, that there were seventy towns in .Maine in which no religious service was held. The Rev. A. E. Dunning, DJO., writing to the “Andover Review" more recently, stated that there were ninety-five towns where no religious service of any kind was held. The Bov. A- H. Wright, pas- . tor 'of St. Lawrence , Street Congregational Church, Portland, in a recent sermon, said:—“The condition of things hero is simply amazing to all honest, unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens. Liquor-selling is a crime in this Stats ia the eyes of the civil law; liquor-sel-lers are criminals. Yet here in our Christian city, governed by Christian men, we are told, than not less than 300 places ’are ojjen and in full operation for the sale of intoxicants." Is it any wonder then that “all honest, unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens" of Maine should revolt against a condition. of affairs that sanctions the continuance of 300 sly-grog shops in a city of 40,000 people-?- And, remember, for years parst the sly-grog vendor has voted with the fanatical prohibitionist against the repeal of the prohibitory law-! Thus it appears that no-license and prohibition have destroyed in Maine all reverronoe for religion, all respect for civil law, and thrown the prohibitionist and tbo sly-grog seller into the same camp. Is it not matter for congratulation that at last a majority of citizens of Maine havo revolted against this continued outrage upon common decency? Yet. some good, well-intentioned, but misguided people in New Zealand would have us believe, notwithstanding the unimpeachable testimony of, the voracious witnesses quoted, and the, fact that Maine lias now virtually declared for licensing, that no-license and prohibition —local and national—would in New Zealand constitute our highest good. It is all a delusion. Maine, after fifty years of iniquity and back-sliding under nc-license, has repented; and, like the prodigal, Maine may now be said to have come to herself —turned over a new leaf. Tbe experience of Maine under no-license and prohibition ought to be a warning to all no-license and prohibition advocates in this Dominion. Surely we are better as we are with one wellregulated. properly-kept hotel under .license than with three despicable slygroga shoj)s under prohibition—tbe churches empty or emptying, and “rightminded clergymen” deploring, like the clergy of Maine, the moral and religions degeneracy of the community under nolicense. That is why Maine revolted. •