TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15033, 5 January 1911, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

LABOUR LEADERS AND DRINK.

In connection with the annual assembly of the Trades Union Congress at Sheffield, the annual meeting of the Trades Union and Labour Official Temperance Fellowship was held, and attended by a large number of twv.ks union lenders, including Mr Arthur Henderson, M.P. (who presided). Mr J. Ramsey MneUonald. M.P.. Mr A. 11. Gill, Mi\ Mr D. J. Shackleion, SI.P., Air Will Crooks, and others. Mr Henderson commenced with the remads that as long as intemperance stood in the way the workers would have difficulty in carrying out the many reforms they so uracil desired. Intemperance was one oi the greatest obstacles to progress. .Mr Balfour referred to the reckless use of alcohol as "this great and ever-preeent ha.gedy." No one knew how true that was more fully than did the trade union official. It was the man they were anxious to 'get hold of because of his influence and his example. DRINK IN CIVIC LIFE AND PAttTA' POLITICS. Mr Ramsay Mac Donald, M.P., remarked that the trade union official taw the ravages of drink in the men, in civic hie, and in party politics. He had seen young men with magnificent futures opening out before, them who had gradually drifted away through drink, and found themselves in the workhouse, or, as a last resort, had become Tariff Reform lecturers. In public bodies which dealt with problems of poverty, nothing presented greater difficulties than the poverty winch came as the result of drink. Anil then in party politics. They could, a« they had done that day, pass resolutions by magnificent majorities about the Osborne ca.se; they could send their reprcfsniatives to Parliament; they could call for measures to remedy the great evils which confronted the people on every hand, and then when the general c't'ct'ion came they found masses of men who [nit the pnblichousc before everything. The trade unionist who did that bald his very birthright for a more miserable mess of pottage than did the foolish Esau. ,He saw some of their critics had labelled them as Wesleyan Methodist. Well, it would be none the worse for some of those critics if they had some of that Wesleyan Methodism in them. The labour movement andi the organised temperance movement had been too long apart. THJi CHILDREN'S BIRTHRIGHT. Mr Will Crooks remarked that there wti-e three things that were cheap—advice, sympathy, and, the cheapest of all, excuses. He. was brought up in an aristocratic neighbourhood, where they lived mostly by borrowing and making excusee. He knew a good deal of the excuses the average working man made far drinking. He knew more of the temptations he had to face, and it was for the people of this country to remove those temptations. It was not a temptation to him when he heard l of a "real cert" for the Lincoln. He knew people who had had some. Nor did he fee] any temptation if he had a shilling in his pocket when he passed a public house. And he didn't go back anil stand himself a drink for his pluck in passing. But the temptations were there, and they were a disgrace to our civilisation. And yet Sir James Crichton Browne had given the brewers a testimonial. He contended that if the man had a right to sell his own birthright, or

even to sell the birthright of his wife, Tie had no right to sell the birthright of his children. He had only been in Sheffield about 48 hours, but three times or more had his heart bled to see the little old men ami women in their streets, mentally and physically deficient, not the bright children, with sweet innocence, but cunning little old men and women. Shame on the nation which tolerated this. 'Die working man talked about hie power; but it was his responsibilities thai he .should valise, a.nd one of the first things he should do was to demand fair dealing and opportunities for our little children. SHOULD I BECOME A TEETOTALER? Some Reasons Why.

I knew a man who had a splendid position, and for seven years worked as steady as a clock, and drew each month a hundred and fifty dollars as salary. He was respected by all who knew him. He went with "the boys" one night for a gooi time. He reported for duty three days later and his boss said : " I present you this proposition, accept a minor position at 60 dollars per month, or consider yourself discharged." The man came to me with tears in his eyes, and said : "Won't you please help me?" I said, "Your caee is beyond any help I can give.; and the saddest part of it is, you have made the conditions yourself." For three years he worked for the amount above named, humiliated and depressed; his family sorrowful and sad. And I said in my heart, " If rum will do that for a man, then I shall hate it and all it stands for till I die."

I know a man and woman who had an only child, a pretty little girl. Little Lizzie girew old enough to go to school. A picture comes to my mind as I write, it is this : A drunken man lying along the roadside, and a little girl calling him and pleading with him to come home. But I he was too stupid to hear or heed the Lcall. God took the little child to himself at a tender age, but that man has an account at the Judgment Bar of Almighty God which he must meet. And I said, "If rum will do that, then in God's name I hate it."

I knew of a man and woman with a little girl, Mary. The man got drunk, went out in a boat, and fell overboard. When the tide went down the man's body was found. Oh, what a sad find it was! A widow and orphan thrust on a cold world because of rum! And I said, "(Jod helping me, my hand , , my life, my influence, are against rum and all it stands for, forever and ever!"

I knew a man, years ago, whose name was a synonym for probity, honour, and everything good; who stood high, not only in his community, hie State, but in the Government of these United States. His law ability was the best. The last time I saw him he was coming out of a ealoon, his influence for good all gone, his character shattered like a broken mirTor, and he was so low thaif the hobo, negro, or lowest drunkards were good enough for him to drink with. His family, heart-broken, hiding their sorrow like the wounded doe with the arrow piercing her breast in the depth of the forest. And I knew a preacher of righteousness that at one time wielded a splendid influence who drank- rum little by little till it bore him down to infamy and shame!

If rum is a good thing, why do the mayors of our cities issue an edict in time of riot to c'ose every saloon! I never heard oi an order to close the churches/and schools! If rum is a good thing, why do railroads and other corporations issue orders forbidding any employee from using it eithea , on duty or off!

A number of men whom I knew aggregated their money, started a saloon, and' advertised for a bartender. These men were drinking men—so-called respectable drinkers. The first question put to the applicant for position as bartender was : "Do you drink rum?" And no man who answered "yes" would be considered for a moment!

The time has come in the business world when the drinker and saloon frequenter must take a back seat.—E. N. Baldwin, in Methodist Protestant. ITALY'S CURSE. Again public attention is called to the rapid- development of the vice of intemperance in the Kingdom of Italy, and again docs history expose the absurdity of the old theory that the encouraging of wine-drinking would be promotive of temperance. The present state of affairs in this southern part of Europe was forcibly presented recently in the London Lancet, which eaid :—" The ' Third Italy,' as it is called, by way of distinction from the ' first' or pagan, and the '6econd' or mediaeval, Italy, isconfronted with two social problems of vast proportions and bewildering complexity—to wit, ' how to antagonize and ultimately to control the tendency to alcoholism and sexual vice.' The former of these (alcoholism) was pra-ctieally unknown to the first oi , pagan Itely; the latter is in no wise less real, if not more obtrusive, than under the latter Republic and subsequent Empire. Both are now ' burning questions' before the Legislature. Both, under the Budget of the Minister of the Interior, have been engaging Parliament in earnest and. prolonged discuesion. Alcoholism, by the admission of all parties in the State, has, extensively and intensively, become a national scourge, pari passu with the increase of population and of industrial activity. Take any main etreet in the chief cities—the Corso of Rome, for example, or the Toledo of Naples—and note the frequency with which the ominous rubric 'American Bar' occurs on either side, thronged all through the day and well into the night. Note how frequently bands of. youths are to be seen staggering up the street drunken, note how frequent is the connection between drink and the crime that comes before our courts, and note the spread of Hooliganism." A DRINKER'S END. The story of a, sadly blighted life was told in a press despatch sent out from New York on September 13, which said : " No longer able to control the appetite for liquor, which for tour years had blighted her life and that of her husband, Mrs Catherine Lynch, of Brooklyn, took her life yesterday by inhaling illuminating gas, while her four-year-old son lay sleeping in the next room. "A handsome woman, barely 30, and the mother of five children, the youngest ■of whom was John, born four years ago. After his birth she was in such ill-health that die began to drink. Siie became such a slave that her husband had toeend the four older children away.

" Beside her scrawled on a bit of wrap|)inij paper , was the following :—'l wish viic police to care for my husband when he finds me gone. God knows I have spoiled his life. 1 am going away now to make him happier. He has always tried to save me. When I taste liquor J lose control of myself. I cannot resist the temptation to drink. God knows, I want to live to-night more than ever as I look upon my darling boy in bed. , "