Temperance Lecture.

Opunake Times, Volume V, Issue 197, 24 July 1896, Page 3

Temperance Lecture.

Owing to tbe inclement slate of !he weather there was but a small audience at tbe Hand of Hope meeting in the Town Hall on Tuesday evening, when Messrs Patterson (Kansas, U..1.A.) and Maunder (Okaiawa) were present on a visit. The Rev. Mr Cannell occupied the chair and introduced the visitors. Mr Maunder delivered an address on the prohibition question, and quoted statistics very fully to prove \ his contention that the liquor traffic was a great curse to the country, and that there would be no emancipation from it until it was totally rubbed out by prohibition. His arguments were very forcibly placed before his hearers and were well received. * Mr Patterson, on taking the platform, said he hoped they did not expect to hear an orator, as he did not profess to be one, but was simply a Kansas farmer who had taken a part in the establishment of prohibition ia that State, and he would just tell them as plainly as he could how the movement originated and was carried to its present successful issue. He might eay this was not the first time he had visited New Zealand as he had been here 80 years ago, and he now came back to see the country and visit some "friends. When he arrived this time he was disappointed, as the country had not made the progress he anticipated, and wages to-day were not more than one-half what they were 80 years ago. It was a grand country, favored in every way by nature, but it had a mill-stone round it which was keeping it back, and nothing would remove that quicker than to do away with the liquor traffic. In Kansas years ago every branch of the agricultural industry was languishing, and farmers were gradually getting worse and worse off. This the farmers became painfully aware of, * but it had not struck them to try and find out the cause previously. Tbe price of cereals went down, tbe price of butter went down, and the price of cattle went down. A Commission of Enquiry was set up and they probed the business to the bottom. They found that in the State of Kansas there were four million pounds a year spent in liquor. Now this was an enormous sum to be spent annually. They found further that in addition to this tremendous waste of money there was a terrible waste of time, as it took no small amount of tbe farmers’ time to attend the bars in order to spend the money. There was therefore a don bte loss. Farmers are very slow to move, but once,they make up their minds they take a lot of stopping, and so it was in this' instance. Further enquiries showed that it was not the bar-keepers who amassed wealth, as there were very few of them who made fortunes, but the money eventually found its way into the pockets of the brewers and distillers. It was also ascertained that the refuse in the shape of grains was fed to the cattle and put them into better apparent condition than the farmers’ cattle with which they competed in the market, and brought very much better prices. This artificial feeding produced diseased cattle, and these were sold for human food. The farmers saw that they were not only wasting their substance, but they were suffering a further loss by means of such competition.. Then the question of prohibition cropped up. It was not treated as a religious question, as men of all denominations joined hand in hand to bring it about. Tbe proposition was put to the test and prohibition was carried. Since then a reign of prosperity had set in, and every farmer in the State was better off to-day. The hotels were changed into accommodation houses and were now doing a thriving trade, and two hotels had since been built, which for magnificence far outshone any that were in existence in the days of the liquor traffic. Farmers did not look after their own interests sufficiently. The demonetisation of silver dealt them a very severe blow, but as they did not recognise how far reaching its effects would be they did not organise a proper opposition to it. At the forthcoming presidential election in the United States, however, it was going to resolve itself into a pitched battle between the adherents of free siver coinage and those who desired a gold standard. The rings of c patalists, who had amassed immense wealth, wished to retain the gold standard, as by that means they could retain their power and keep down the prices of all the farmers’ products. The farmer was the only producer who grew his crops and placed all his produce in the open market, taking whatever he could get for it. Every manufacturer calculated the cost ?f production on every yard of stuff or other article manufactured, and then adding his profit fixed bis own price so as to always bring himself out on the right side, but not so the farmer. This the farmers should do and then they would be masters of the situation. Prohibi-

tion was the first step. If prohibition were carried, the three millions now

spent each year in the colony in drink

would be available for investment in legitimate production besides the time saved which was now wasted in spending the money. In the States they had no king or queen. Their monarch was King Majority, and if these was only a majority of one the side having it carried the day. Being used to this principle he could not understand what was meant by a three fifths majority. Why should not a farmer be equal to an hotelkeeper ? By this three-fifths majority it seemed to him that it took three farmers to balance two hotelkeepers. It was very fanny that it should be so, bub that was the only

explanation of it he could see. If

Prohibition were once carried and given a fair trial liquor would never return, as once the people tasted freedom they would never become slaves to the liquor trade again. It was

no use trying to reform it from withm. In America they had two political parties the same as they have here, and be might say that they acted in much the same way. He had heard Mr Dfithie and several other speakers saying that the other side were only vagabonds, and then he went to hear

the other fellows and they said Duthie and Co were liars. Well, it was just the same in the States between the Democrats and the Republicans. They were just as gentlemanly. He heard a speaker once describe and illustrate both parties and the need for reform by means of two eggs. He took one in each hand and called them respectively Democrat and Republican. He knocked the top off the Democrat, and it was that ripe that it nearly knocked the top off him. He did not think that could be reformed from the inside, so put it away. He then knocked the top off the other one called Republican and it bad evidently seen as many summers as tbe Democratic egg and was quite as ripe, and therefore it was as far beyond the hope of reform from within. What was then wanted was a fresh healthy new laid egg to be called Prohibition, and the country would fatten ont it. He resumed his seat amidst applause. A hearty vote of thanks to Mr Patterson and Mr Maunder for their interesting addresess, on the motion of Mr Brennan, was carried by acclamation.

A similar vote to the chair terminated the proceedings.