South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1884.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3498, 21 June 1884, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1884.

The colony has never been furnished before with such a striking evidence of the extremes to which fanaticism will carry men, and of the evil consequence of allowing an originally good idea to he worked out to an extreme, as has just been furnished by the Ormondville Licensing Committee in withdrawing the licenses from all the public houses of the district. If this is to be accepted as a sample of the legislation we are to expect from teetollers we may indeed blush for the cause of temperance and tremble for the prospects of the colony. The injury done to the travelling public by such an insane proceeding is too serious to contemplate without indignation. What on earth do these fanatical legislators propose to do? What sort of a reign of terror do they desire to establish ? It is a most remarkable circumstance that temperance theories, which ought to be specially restraining and softening in their influence, should act upon men like fiery poison in the blood, and urge them to commit acts and lead lives of bigotry, intolerance and absurdity. So long as teetotal fanaticism confines itself to the lodge-room and private life we do not complain, but when it mounts to the judicial Bench, it is high time the people entered a protest. The effect of such extreme measures as those of the Ormondville Licensing Committee will necessarily be to cause a re-action and to undo much of the good work which the moderate temperance party and discreet reformers have with so much self-denial and diligence effected. The public can never submit to be ridden rough-shod over by a clique. We trust the Supreme Court will give these gentlemen a wigging and make them pay for their amusement, and we also trust the episode will teach everyone the folly of placing on the Bench persons pledged to one extreme or the other. We should be disposed to amend one provision of the Act—so that while persons interested in the sale of liquor might, as now, be disqualified from sitting on Committees, office-bearers and members of teetotal lodges might also be disqualified. If such things as this Ormondville affair are to occur frequently, it is time the friends of true temperance took some action in order to sustain the good name of the cause.