TEE TOLLY OF PROHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13209, 16 February 1905, Page 8

TEE TOLLY OF PROHIBITION.

REMARKABLE EVIDENCE.

(Published under arrangement with Mr W. Thojisox.) Your correspondent "Civis," whose exceedingly clever letters constitute one of the features of your Saturday's issue, has latelyvoiced a very plain and much-needed warning to the people of Dunedin. I quote his words:— . • "CIVIS" ON THE EVILS OF PROHIBITION. " If ever wo should be privileged to bring this city under the iron rule of no-license, this city will bo giveu'up to. make-believe, prevarication, . perjury, and straight-out lying." . Please to emphasise these words of " Civis," Mr Editor. Take any means you like to do so, but let them bo known. Let your readers lay Ilium to heart, treasure them ,in their minds, and remember what no-license would mean on election day. First, I notice that, in Oivis's opinion, nolicense means " iron rule." Quite true. The rule of (he tyrant, of the autocrat, and of the invader of the home. Dunedin under no-license would be St. Petersburg under the Czar, or Omdurinan under the Malidi, either of which to a y.eople who have, tasted the blessings of freedom would bo intolerable. But that is not all, not- even the worst, " make-believe,. prevarication, perjury," and straight-out lying" are the greatest evils that can befall any city. When conditions in Dunedin become such that prevarication, perjury, and straight-out lying will bo regarded as necessary to evade I'no law which the conscience of tlio community does not approve the gates are immediately opened for the greatest immoralities to be committed with ease. Conscience itself will be weakened, and' die. This is exactly what no-license would do. Tlio no-license leaders have already imported "malice, hatred, and all unchavitableness" into the politics of the colony, they have succeeded in terrorising a very great inany to " make-believe," and have thereby fitted them for " prevarication, perjury, and straight-out lying." THE CASE OP CIVIS PROVED. There is before us a very excellent book, "The Legislative Aspects of Prohibition," containing (ho reports of a committee r-f SO, representing dilFcrcut communities, occupations, and opinions. Let us take a few sentences:—"The public has seen • law defied, a whole generation of habitual lawbreakers, schooled in evasion and shamelessncsS, courts ineffective through fluctuations of policy, delays, perjuries, negligences, and other miscarriages of justice." It is no wonder that wo read of the enormous increase o! lawlessness in America. There can be no doubt that a very great deal of it is due to prohibition. PROHIBITION THE DIRECT CAUSE OF HYPOCRISY. Take another sentence from the same authority: " Officers of the law*, doublefaced and mercenary, legislators timid and insincorc, candidates for office hypocritical and truckling, and odice-holders unfaithful to pledges and to reasonable public expectation." REV. A. S. EMBRY SUPPORTS CIVIS." Rev. A. S. Embry, 'of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Leavenworth, Kansas, in a recent speech, declared it was impossible to enforce the prohibition law in that city, and made the remarkable statement that there were not more than 50 out-and-out prohibitionists in Leavenworth. "The members of my own church," he said, " are prohibitionists at home, but are not prohibitionists when they gefc.down town." When a Methodist clergyman acknowledges .that the members of his own church aro prohibitionists at home but arc not so in town, he confesses to tho charge of makebelieve and hypocrisy. To suit tho occasion, these gentlemen of the oliurch, surrounded by females of the No-license League and other " persuasions," are of co;u\-c convenient, believers in prohibition I Nothing then cau bo more wholesome than tea. and ginger-pops! Down town they denounce ilin whole thing, and when "far from veil," which, fortunately, they are every day, nothing agrees with thcin bettor than whisky or beer! Alas for such Christianity! These are the men who boeomo perjurers and straight-out liars. BISHOP CLARK, OP RHODE ISLAND, who knows the immoral results of prohibition as well as any man, declared that "prohibition has been disastrous to thecause of ''—and we cannot wonder when we see in this colony how purblind and fanatical, and how prohibition is preferred before the Gospel—is, in fact, made a gospel as well r.s a political creed by those whom it pays so well to espouse. REV. T. -J. MACKAY. COUNCIL BLUFFS, lOWA. " After several years of trial of prohibition in this city the law has proved a miserable farce. The country has been put to an immense amount of trouble and expense, and all to no purpose. I do not. believe that the open saloon is as dangerous to the morals of tho rising generation as the clubrooiiis and privato drinking habits which prohibition always creates." The Rev. Mr Mackay is very candid when ho describes no-license l as a "miserable' fprce " and more " dangerous to the morals of the rising generation " than the saloon. Hut from all flip testimonials that aro open to us BISHOP STANLEY. OF NORTH DAKOTA, is as convincing as possible. The- venerable bishop sneaks from his own experience, and his weighty words arc .worthy of every consideration. Ho says: "I am convinced that nrohibition is doing incalculable harm to the ■ State and to miiiy of its inhabitants. In many trips around tho State I see and hear these facts. Such being the ease. I contend that the time ha? come to make a change for the better." We do not propo-e to give further evidence in tho meantime in favour of the indictment aeain't prohibition so skilfully stated, by "Civis." Scores of others could 1-c cited. But how apparent i ); is tint the' Rev. Frank Tsitt. Miss (or .Mrs) Kliz. Rigsr. Mr A. S. Adams, and Co. are dointt their best to thwart and arrest our Bril-Wi conceptions .of true (emperanco, which are along natural and Christian line?, and to introduce the American system of "make-believe, prevarication, perjury, and slraight-out lying."