PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2003, 14 July 1892, Page 40

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Prohibition. I daresay I am on rather ticklish ground when I head a note with the red-rag sign "Prohibition," but I hoist the sign on purpose, for I want you to express your opinion on the subject. Girls, too, can send in their thoughta. It is some time since I published any essays, and as this is a burning question at present you can use this column for a week or two within reasonable limits as a safety valve. The subject can hardly be dismissed in a few words, and if we include compensation to publicans who are to be deprived of their licenses, it becomes a still more difficult one to deal with. lam a prohibitionist in that I am an abstainer and wish to see the traffic swept off the face of the earth, but at the same time I do not think that a comparatively sudden outburst of enthusiasm, backed up by legislative action will settle the question as satisfactorily as total abstainers in general imagine. Why do we call ourselves temperance folk when we are against even the teniperate use of intoxicating liquors? So many are saturated with it that nothing short of medical treatment in asylums will prevent them from satisfying their desire for it. The agitation, however, in favour of prohibition will so focus public opinion upon the evils oE the drink traffic that many will grow up total abstainers while many others will be prevented from going to excess by dread of the disgrace which is now attached to over-indulgence. The present agitation is only one of many agencies at work in the evolution necessary for a higher type of civilization. We mußt remember, too, that nearly all reforms at the outset originate in a desire for some ideal which seems to most to be unattainable. The outcome of the present state of affairs will be, I think, the abolition of all houses that are purely drinking shops of which there are scores in Dunedin and suburbs alone. On the question of compensation I have no doubt whatever. I am dead against it. Why should it be, granted 1 It seems to me to be pare twaddle to say that the British 6ense of fair play demands it. In the first place hotels have been persistently pushed on the public, and many have given way to drink simply because it has been thrust in their way against their wish ; in the second place the consumption of liquor causes such an intense amount of misery that its abolition, or almost total abolition, is absolutely nece3sary, and, to my mind, no sense of justice, British or otherwise, demands us to pay a man for stopping a business that degrades the vast majority connected with it ; in the third place if compensation is given to a publican, it must in justice be given to those living near public houses, whose properties have been depreciated in value by the opening of drink shops; then again, if compensation is to be given, it also ought to be given to those who have been ruined through no fault of their own — wives and families for instance. Do we ever bear of a publican supporting the wife and family of a man who has lost his life directly through the liquor he has supplied 7 It is about time that we safeguarded those who cannot guard themselves, and those depending upon them. We seem to lose sight of the fact that public houses should be, not drinking dens, but accommodation houses for the travelling public. The stopping of the drink traffic does not necessarily close them up. If it does, all the more necessary that those travelling Bhould be protected from themselves, for the simple reasons that those depending upon them demand it, and those who do not drink object to be taxed to support those who have been brought to destitution through indulgence on their own part or on the part of those they depend npon. I admit that there are publicans who do not tempt their customer?, and who refuse drink to those tho worse for liquor or who cannot afford it; but these are comparatively few. Viewing the body as a whole they mast be well aware of the fact that a great deal of the liquor they supply is not only not necessary but absolutely productive of harm, even when it is pure in quality. Men who supply liquor knowing that the money spent is actnally necessary to provide the ordinary necessaries of life in the homes of the spenders cannot by any twisting of truth be said to be earning an honest living ; they may be honest legally, but not morally, and the Booner Christian morality and not legality is made the basis of action the better it will be for all concerned. And if it be admitted that publicans have no moral right to ruin their customers, then it must be admitted they have no moral right to compensation. One more word. The agitation against the drink traffic ha 3 been long and persistent, and anyone investing in hotel property for years past has done so with his eyes open. It has been a business risk, and if public opinion has strengthened against the publican, it is at his risk, and he must abide by the result as an ordinary business man. I Now you can let me know what you think. The Fittsburg Massacre. This has filled us all with horror, and ha 3 awakened va to the fact that the seething discontent i 9 ready to break out at any moment. Some one with authority to speak "not long since said that the social problem will be settled first in America, because socialism has there made the greatest advance. Is this resistance to law and order, and the existing social conditions, the mutterings of the coming storm 1 I have read a little oE tho present day labour literature, and have been struck with the dark outlook pictured and tlie sullenness and mutinous spirit abroad in the ranks of labour. In the Nineteenth Century, about 18 months ago, Cardinal Manning and the Rev. Hugh Price Hughe3 contributed articles on " Irresponsible Wealth." I was bo struck with them that I made extracts which, in the l'ght of present events in Pittsbnrg, have peculiar interest. The Roy. Hugh Price Hughes' article had direct ieference to an article by Mr Carnegie, in whose works the present slaughter has taken place. It will be remembered that 8 couple of years ago Mr Carnegie drew attention to the wonderful prosperity of the United States, and spoke disparagingly of the English Monarobioal Government andjthe Freetrade policy

of the nation. Some months ago we were informed that owing to the depression of trade, Mr Carnegie bad determined on reducing wages, asserting that he was running his business on commercial, not philanthropic principle?; the result we now see. With this rather long introduction, I'll give my notes of the Rev. Hugh Prico Hughes' paper, condensed as much as possible. Mr Carnegie is an ironmaster millionaire, one of a class that is an anti-Christian phenomenon, a social monstrosity, and a grave political peril, tho artificial product of such measures as M'Kinley Bills. In a country constructed on a Christian basis, a millionaire would be an economic impossibility, for Christ prohibited the accumulation cf wealth. Millionaires at one end of the scale involve paupers at the other end, and even so excellent a man as Mr Carnegie is too dear at that price. lam sure Mr Carnegie is much too sensible a man to suppose that his vast fortune represents a proportionate superiority over his fellow citizens, or even over those who combined to crouto his fortune. By unrestricted competition and the tariff, he bas pocketed much more than his equitable share of the joint product of labour and capital. It is to be feared that many of our wealth} and privileged men are living in a fool's paradise, an 3 have no conception of tbe gravity of the social probl2tn. They had a great shock a short time ago when the fringe of a Trafalgar Square meeting broke into one or two West End shops. They awoke from their apathy and marched about strangely attired for a few days as special constables, but they have apparently fallen asleep again. In London we are living on the verge of a volcano that might one day have an eruption before which even the household troops will be helpless. Never since the fall of the Roman Empire and the dissolution of the ancieDt world has Europe witnessed so perilous a situation as exists in London to-day. Never has there been so vast a multitude of half-starved men within sight of boundless wealth and outside the control of the Christian church. Among large classes o£ tbe poor animosity is taking the place of goodwill, and charity gifts are looked upon as ransoms, and insufficient ones. Hitherto the poor have accepted their lot as inevitable, as the will of God ; but tbe schoolmaster, the political economist, and the socalist propagandist have been among them, and the sad hearts see Hop?, but it is Hope mingled with Anger. Lazarus is no longer lying on the doorstep of Dives, in the quiescence of sullen despair, licked by the dogs. He is standing upright at the corner of the street-, vehemently gesticulating, and his burning words are sinking deep into the hearts of a large crowd of hungrylooking men. He then quotes John Wesley, who asks all mankind to brand him as a thief if he died worth a ten-pound note ; and the president of the economic section of the British Association, who said : " Every year it is becoming more manifest that we need to have more knowledge, and- to get it soon in order to escape on the one hand the cruelty and waste of an irresponsible competition and licentious use of wealth, and on the other the tyranny and spiritual death of an iron-bound socialism." A great deal of this may not seem to have much connection with the Pittsburg revolt, but to my mind every line is significant to those following social movements of the present day, I do not suppose that the workmen who were locked out or went out on strike were reduced to starvation wages, though so far as I have been able to make out the apparently high wages in the United States have comparatively small purchasing power. Nor do I suppose for a moment that Mr Carnegie makes a li3entious use of his wealth ; but this I do know — Mr Carnegie is one of a steel and iron ring that by protective duties, a limited output, and an arbitrary price for its output, has amassed at the expense of industry so much wealth as to necessitate the coining of the word multi-millionaire. His men know this, and know too that other rings are also bleeding the working classai who cannot often see below the surface. Hence the determined attitude of the strikers, who are only patting into practical effect the thoughts of millions in Europe and Ameiica. I am afraid we are in for troublous times — the outcome of the unrestricted competition and childlabour heralded by the age of machinery rather than of injustice at the present time, though God kuows there are enough injustices still to be faced and overcome. I pulled up rather short on Prohibition, and now I'll have to pull up again, for our editor has so much parliamentary and other matter to crush in, that we must thank our stars and think ourselves highly complimented if he allows us our usual space, and I have if anything exceeded it.