TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15098, 22 March 1911, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

GLADSTONE'S RULES FOR BOYS. Gladstone's laurels arc still so green

that it is hard to think'of him as one of the centenarians of KOS, says the Chris- / tian ■ Advocate, though he was. boni one hundred years ago. His personality is still vivid in the minds of thousands of Englishmen. In those young people who grew up on his great estate at Hawarden he took a fatherly interest. One of them remembers that the boys and girls of his tenantry were required to learn • the following characterisation of drunkenness:— Drunkenness expels reason, Drowns the memory, Distempers the body, Defaces the body, Defaces beauty, Diminishes strength, Inflames the blood, Causes internal, external, and incurable wounds; It's a witch to the senses, A devil to the soul; A thief to the purse, A beggar's companion, A wile's woe and children's sorrow. It makes man become a beast and self-murderer. He drinks to others' good health, And robs himself of his own.

SCOTCH WHISKY TRADE DECLINING.

The trade in Scotch whisky last year was the worst in the trade's history. The production decreased by over 2,000,000 gallons, and amounted to only 22,000,000 gallons, the lowest for 16 years. Stocks carried forward into the new year were 115,000,000 gallons, being an increase of 1,700,000 gallons, which is the first increase for many years. Several distillers are not commencing the new make.

THE 7ICTOBIAN PREMIER SPEAKS.

Mr Murray, Premier of Victoria, has sympathy with our work, and unlike many public men he is not ashamed to show it. He is reported to have affirmed his belief that the licensed public-house makes drunkards. The president of the Hotelkeepers" Association resents such a grave charge, and gives himseif and fellowpohJicans a certificate of being honest, law-ibiding citizens, and writes down Mr Mtrray's charge as "'distinctly untrue and misleading." ■ To accept the certiii-cate-the passer-by must be blind and deaf. To doubt Mr Murray, is to refuse to accept either experience or evidence. But the president of the Hotelkeopers' Association produces his arguments—the ]aw forbids drunkenness on licensed premises, and the police are paid to enwrc3 the law. Therefore, in hotels no drunkards can be made or found! But the law prohibits theft and many other crimes, and the police are pledged and paid to prevent these crimes, yet we have criminals and courts and judges and gaols. Haying proved- to his own satisfaction that the hotel docs not produce drunkards, bnt admitting that there are drunkards, Mr Murray's critic gives the reasons for their existence in the wonderful words: " Drunkards are made by far-reachiag pathological causes, and inherent incapacity, combined with restrictive, short-' sighted legislation—apart altogether from the sale of alcohol in hotels." Those are wonderful words, bnt most men will continue to believe that the use,of alcoholic drinks makes .drunkards, and the place where it is supplied may, with a due regard to veracity, be called an institution where drunkards are made. Will any amount of legality or State reguiarob the serpent of his poison?— Alliance Record.

INCREASING TEMPERANCE IN GERMAN NAVY.

Certain, returns which have been published in. connection with the German navy, says the Newcastle Chronicle, show that in his , recent speech on the value of abstinence from alcoholic liquors the Kaiser was mat preaching againet a growing evil, bnt, on the contrary, encouraging aa improved condition of tilings. It is demonstrated that sines 1906 the consumption of alcoholic beverages in tho German navy has diminished by 30 per cent., "and that as a result punishments for offences arising from dnrnkennees have correspondingly decreased. More important still, maladies and physical deterioration directly traced to excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks have almost

reached a vanishing point. It ie satis-1 factory- to know that if such gocd results ' have presented themselves in Germany | they have also manifteted themselves in I England. Our bluejackets do not drink ! anything like as much as the eailors of ; a- previous generation. Every waiship lias a. good proportion of tota.l abstaineis on board, and even those who are not total abstainers are, in numerous case, sensible moderate drinkers. The facilities offered of exchanging grog allowances for money payments, or compensation in kind, have, moreover, materially assisted the movement in favour of sobriety.

A man may drink in such a way as never to feel consciously excited or embarrassed, yet ruin his health and ent short hk days mone speedily and eurely than the man 1 who is dead dirunk every Saturday night.—Dr Greenfield.

SIR WALTER SCOTT ADVOCATES LICENSE REDUCTION.

The intelligent student of life and work in his native country, and particularly the habits and customs of the p<wple, constantly comes across examples of reformers before the days of the inauguration of the Temperance movement as we know it to-day. Thus many may be surprised to find Sir Walter Scott writing in iavour of tile reduction of licensed houses. In a. letter written by him in 1817 he said :—" There ie a terrible evil in, England to which we are strangers. The number of tippling houses where the labourer, as a matter of course, spends the overflow of his earnings in Scotland is few,- and the justices are commendably inexorable in rejecting all applications for licenses where there appears no public necessity for granting them. A man, therefore, in Scotland cannot easily spend muoh in liquor, since he must walk three or four mike to the place of suction and back again, which infers a sort of malice prepense of which few aTO capable j and th-? habitant opportunity of indulgence not being at hand, the habit of intemperance and the waste connected with it are not acquired. If the financiers would admit a general limitation of the ale houses over England to a quarter of the number, I am convinced you would find tihat the money spent in that' manner would remain with the peasant as a source of self-support and independence."