SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE V. BLUDGEONING PROHIBITION

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10634, 6 July 1920, Page 3

SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE V. BLUDGEONING PROHIBITION

' (To the (Editor “N.Z. Times.”) Sir,—There is a great difference be- ' tween scientific temperance and bludgeoning prohibition. Scientific temperance has everything to commend it; bludgeoning prohibition has nothing to commend it. Temperance is a rea-gious, Christian, and moral virtue, and we are enjoined by Scripture to “let our moderation be known unto all men.” The practice of temperance is, iticirefore, enjoined upon us by the Highest lot all authorities. • Prohibition, as we understand it in this country, and as it is expounded by the bludgeoning prohibitionists, has neither morals, religion, nor Christian principles to commend it. . Prohibition ds not an honest proposition. It is a violation of -that Christian principle—love your neighbour as yourself. The prohibitionists would ruin quite a number of decent, respectable fellow-citizens if their methods were permitted. The whole country is sharing in the profits of the business, and the publican to-day is as the publican was of old—a collector of taxes. But it is voluntary taxation, from which the prohibitionist is exempt, and while the man or woman who takes a glass of beer, or a glass of wine is contributing to the revenue of the country, the prohibitionist contributes nothing. Being interested in scientific temperance, as opposed to bludgeoning prohibition, I turned to the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and there I found Dr. Arthur Shad well's article. He says ; —“Drinking peoples are noticeably more energetic and progressive than non-drinking ones." Ho supports this by fact and the evidence of experience. “It is,” ho says, “the universal experience of shipmasters that British seamen, whose intemperance causes trouble, and therefore induces, a preference for more sober foreigners,!exhibited energy, and endurance in emergency, of which the latter are incapable.” Of course, alcoholic excess is j ust as bad as prohibition. Prohibition creates unneighboprLiness, bad feeling, disrupted homos, discontent, and social strife. There ne no peace where prohibition is:, neither is there to bo found any peace among excessive users of alcohol. Thus, both drunkards and prohibitionists are a nuisance to the community. Dr. Arthur Shadwell, who is on M.A., M.D., LL.D., a Member of the Council of the Epidemiological Society, says, in the same article to which I have referred,'that "The balance of opinion on the vexed question whether alcohol itself is a food is now on the side of alcohol." And then, ho concludes, with this striking sentence: "The absolute condemnation of alcoholic drinks has never been endorsed by public opinion, or by the medical profession, because, it is contradicted by the general experience."— Enc. Brit. “TVmperance," p. 584. Now niy point with regard l to Mrs Atkinson is this >■—'That she and the Rev. E. S. Gray, and other prohibitionists are anxious to get the Minister for Education to adont and introduce into pur schools the text books of the prohibitionists. ' They are posing for this purpose as advocates of scientific temperance. Prohibitionists have done nothing for temperance in this country; they have only traduced their neighbours and endeavoured to take away the characters of those who use, but do not. abuse, alcoholic beverages. In their attitude, before the Minister for Education they reminded me of the posing of Jacob bei fore Isaac, when Isaac said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’’ And so it is the Rev. R. S. Gray, the Eey. John Dawson, Mrs Atkinson, and all the rest of them—they posed as temperance advocates, just as Jacob posed as Esau; but they are not temperance advocates, they are prohibitionists, and they would compel by the power of a majority all men and women to be of their type. They are the bludgeoning prohibitionists: the power of a majority is their weapon. Prohibitionists. like the Ethiopians, cannot change their skins. It is written, we. do not gather figs from thorns, and pigs have not yet been known to grow feathers The idea is, of course:, that prohibitionists can never he temperance, people; they are intoxicated with prohibition just as much as the man or woman is who becomes intoxicated by over-indulgence in alcoholic liquors. Prohibition with all Its abominable attributes is their form of drunkenness. CATECHIST.