ANOTHER PROHIBITION PAMPHLET

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 7

ANOTHER PROHIBITION PAMPHLET

A REPLY TO PROFESSOR SALMOND. Some estimate of the value attached by the Prohibition, party to Professor Saimond's now famous pamphlet may be gathered from the number and nature of the replies. Mr A.. S. Adams was-the first in the field to attempt, "officially," to combat the allegedly erroneous conclusions and misleading facts arrived at and advanced by the Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the Otago University, and from the prohibitionists' standpoint Professor Saimond's arguments were completely diisposed of by Mr Adams. Indeed, we were invited to believe that Professor Saknond had not a leg left to stand upon after Mr Adams had done with him.

Apparently, however, trie New Zealand Alliance has yet some doubts on the question, since above its imprint there has just issued from the press yet another pamphlet, the -work of another lawyer, Mr A. R. Atkinson, of Wellington, which, under title "The Drink Traffic—A Blunder," is defined on the title page, " A Reply to Professor SaJmond." Mr Atkinson at the outset pays ProfessoT SaJmond a compliment when - he says: " It is a pleasure to ( / acknowledge that in rhetorical and dialectical skill, in historical and literary allusion, in humour and style, Dr Salmond has merits which are not usually associated with the championship of the liquor traffic" A similar compliment may be paid to Mr Atkinson for the manner and the matter of his reply, which for literary, style, intelligent grasp of - the subject, and health of scholarly allusion by far transcends the average productions of the Prohibition party. Mr Atkinson-sets out to refute Professor Salmond's " destructive criticism" of prohibition under the foljowing nine heads, undertaking to show:— J 1. That hie attack upon the Prohibition party for reckless and inaccurate statements recoils upon his own head. ■ 2. That his unfamiliarity with the rudiments of the liquor problem is so profound as to sugsrest either a, voluntary blindness or an invincible obsession.

3. That his attitude to every aspect of the question is that of an unbalanced partisan. 4. That his historical analogies are fanciful, fallacious, and grossly misleading. 5. That his theory of the functions of the State has no foundation in principle, authority, or practice. 6. That his appeal to abstract principles on this and other questions consists mainly o£ an unreasoned assertion of his own prejudices. 7. That his treatment of the problem from its physiological side is a parody equally of science and of. common sense. 8. That his talent for misquotation and misinterpretation is so amazing as to amount almost to genius, and does not. spare even the sacred "writings. 9. That he wrests the Scriptures to the detriment of prohibition by the same means which have pitted them against science and philanthropy in the past, and by the loose application of a smattering of text learning has arrived at a conclusion, entirely opposed to the spirit of the New Testament. If Mr Atkinson's premises be granted he makes out a very good case. He quotes a whole army of authorities, makes his points well, and enforoes his argument with many apt quotations. He also makes sundry capital hits at his opponent, which Professor Salmond himself will be able to enjoy. According to Mr Atkinson Professor Salmond " is out to smash the prohibitionists, and the desire to convict them of exaggeration exhausts his. interest in the ovidenoe." Mr Atkinson claims that Professor Salmond's charge against the prohibitionists of using " loose and exaggerated language" recoils "upon his own Date." After citing"'several instances alleged by Dr Salmond to be deserving of the epithet, Mr Atkinson triumphantly exclaims: — It is absolutely unimpeachable bed-rock testimony of this kind, that Dr Salmond has denounced as "loose and exaggerated" without the faintest conception of the authority upon which it rests. That he should have failed so ignominiously upon ground of his own choosing is a striking tribute to the accuracy _ p-f the party which he set out to demolish. - It • also proves that the air of oracular wisdom and pontincial authority which perhaps comes natural to a learned professor who beieves himself to be with ignorant and hysterical opponents is not a sufficient substitute for the care and research which their humbler faculties have not disdained to bring to the investigation' of evidence. Dr Salmond's blind, hasty, and ill-informed partisanship does indeed illustrate the very weakness that he ascribes to hi© opponents. It is a pleasure to one of thorn to remind him of Burke's warning to his constituents: V Gentlemen, it is not your fond desires or mine that can alter the nature of things." It is not fanatical fancies, but the nature of things that Dr Salmond is xunning his head against; and hard as

it is, he must not be surprised that it gets the worst of the encounter. "The part of Dr Salmond's arjrument to

which his academical distinction, his standing in the Church, and his reputation as a preacher will naturally lend the greatest weight" (writes -Mr Atkinson in another place) "is that dealing with the Biblical aspect of the matter. His unfamiliarlty with the facte of the liquor question may be patent and profound. His medical science may be antiquated and impossible. The exemplary warnings which he derives from profane history may be an entertaining jumble of unhistorical statement, and fallacious inference. .But as a distinguished minister of the Presbyterian Church, a former Professor of Theology, and Doctor of Divinity, ho may naturally be credited with a special authority in the department of •Biblical exegesis and Christian ethics. His arguments, under these heads are therefore deserving of the most careful attention from those who not only endeavour to make the Bible their guide and standard in all matters of religion and morals, but find in its- teaching a special call to the abolition of the liquor traffic;" This is Mr Atkinson's summing-up of the whole matter: —" Profe;-sor Saimond's pamphlet is a strenuous and impassioned plea, not merely for the legal, right to drink, but also for the moral right so to do, and fox the benefits of the practice. His eulogies of a purely carnal pleasure are not new in substance. What is striking about them is that a commonplace which is as old as human appetite—or. at anyrate, as human speech,—and of which nobody is ever likely to lose sight, should be urged with such a passionate intensity by a distinguished divine and invested almost with an air of religious sanctity. ' Deep-seated in our souls is the longing to make our conscious existence festive; to substitute " the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness " ; to have our hearts inspired with glad enthusiasm, overflowing with delight in the gift of being that God has bestowed on us.' How beautiful it all sounds, how genuinely pious! It is only when tho spell of the Professor's eloquence has- passed away that we realise that all he has told us is that pleasure is pleasant; and we really needed no' reverend divine and no fervid eloquence to assure us of the fact."

The only criticism we venture' to make upon Mr Atkinson's able effort is that it is too long. Few except convinoed prohibitionists wilt wa.de through a pamphlet of more than 90' cksely-printed pages. Consequently we fear that there are few who will be converted from the errors of their ways by this well-meant effort. It is a pity —from the prohibitionist standpoint—that the argument for national prohibition oannot be put into such short compass that he who runs may read.