TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2303, 21 April 1898, Page 21

TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

The second of a- series of temperance lectures by Mr J. Vale, of Melbourne, was delivered in the City Hall on Monday, under the auspices of the New Zealand Allianc?. Mr A. S. Adams presided, and the Rev. Mr Ready, the Rev. Mr Hinton, and Mr A. C. Begg also occupied seats on the platform. There was bub a small audience ; about 130 persons beiog present;. The chairman gave a vigorous speech in favour of abstinence and prohibition, and spoke with the utmost confidence of the ultimate overthrow of the liquor traffic ; though he regarded as an expression of hope rather than of anticipation the statement thab the bells which ring ia the coming century should ring oat the liquor traffic of this colony.

Mr J. Vale then delivered a long bub interesting temperance address, dealing especially with the question from the standpoint of political economy. Iv commencing, he said he did not pose as a great lecturer, but was the secretary of the Victorian Alliance, with speaking thrown in as a little extra. His subject was •• Toilers and Spoilers," and the idea he had in his mind was to show how the temperance and prohibition movement was calculated to blees the lot of the workers. He did not suggest that those who were called the working classes had any monopoly of the vice of intemperance, but; he did contend that while prohibition would bless all classes it was especially calculated to brighten the lofc of those who laboured, and who earned their bread by the sweat of the brow. People who did nothing useful were drones and were a burden to society; bub those who did what was worse than nothing were tbe spoilers who prey upon the toilers. Excluding from consideration the useful and necessary work of providing accommodation for travellers and homeß for those away from home, and referring to the liquor traffic, againsb which alone the efforts of the temperance reformers were directed, he, without hesitation, classed the publicans, and of course the brewers twid spirit merchants, among the

spoilers. The man, he said, who makes strong drink takes food and produces poison, gladness and produces sorrow, health and produces disease, innocence and produces guilt, laughter* «nd produces tears, men and produces brutes', women and produces fiends, so that they could quite understand Lord Randolph Churchill, who was no teetotal fanatic or prohibitionist. Baying, " Tbe liquor traffic is devilish and destructive." The* lecturer spoke of the wasta and the Gvil resulting from the liquor traffic, and maintained that drink was the enemy of labour, and that loss of traffic to the publican was gain to the people.