THE PRESBYTERY AND PROHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18687, 17 October 1922, Page 8

THE PRESBYTERY AND PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— There are reasons of a kind why the Presbyterian Church might be' expected to oppose prohibition It is a democratic Church. It is everywhere latgely influenced by Scotland. Half the members of its ruling courts arc elders, aiid clders are es varied in type as Mr Honor Law, Mr John Buchan, Mr Woodrow Wilson, Field-marshal Haig, and Lord Aberdeen, all of whom are “ruling elders,” Some of its richer members are financially interested in the liquor trade, yet the Presbyterian Church in all lands stands for prohibition. Why? Dean Fitchett, “Civis,” and “Parishioner” will know that the “Auld Kirk,” the State Church of Scotland, is even more cautious than the others about its facts and schemes. One of its leaders, the Rev. W. Swan, personally investigated American prohibition. He went to America biased against prohibition. Ho returned to Scotland a convinced believer in its benefits. The Temperance Committee, of which be is convenor, recommended the Assembly of that great and historic Church “to use all possible efforts to secure the reduction and abolition of licenses.” The National Church of Scotland is more famed for caution and scholarship than for enthusiasm and reform, but that is where it stands in May, 1352. I have before me the report of the other great Scottish Church, the United Free Church, for 1921. It passed a motion in which it warned its faitnful people against taking any part in the liquor business; it congratulated those districts in Scotland where a no-lioense result was obtained; and it urged presbyteries “to do everything possible towards a victory for no-license.” The speakers made clear that their ultimate goal was prohibition of the liquor trade in Scotland.—l am, etc., »