A Prohibition Fallacy

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 6 May 1905, Page 3 (Supplement)

A Prohibition Fallacy

(To tke Editor). ■Sir,—Your leader iff the 29th hist., plainly and forcibly exposes the false reasoning of Prohibitionists in drawing tin analogy between the criminal law intended to punish men after committing an offence and Prohibition which punishes men before they have committed the offence of drunkenness, the punishment being the deprivation of their natural rights and liberty to drink wine or alcoholic drinks in moderation. It may intercut your readers to know that the fallacy and wickedness of such reasoning when put into practice, was exposed 200 years ago by the greatest Englishman of the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell. Prohibition, as then enforced by' the elders and rulers of the national; Presbyterian Church, prohibited the preaching • of the Gospel by dissenters. In a letter to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Cromwell commences ’

” Because 1 am at some reasonable good leisure, I cannot let such gross mistakes and ' inconsequential reasonings pass without some notice.” After referring hJ various matters and rebuking tho Presbyterian Church for assuming to be infallible expositors of the Scriptures and Lord God's people, and claiming the exclusive right to preach lest others should preach false doctrine or wicked principles, he says, “ Indeed, you err through mistaking the Scriptures. . ... Your pretended fear

lest error should step in is like the man who would Iceop all the wine out of the country lest men should be drunk, lit will be found to be an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition ttiat he may abuse it. When ho doth abuse, judge.” Another dartgerous fallacy prevalent amongst Prohibitionists was exposed by the late pious and much respected Mr Ttvomas Denniston, himself being both teetotaller and \Prohibitionist. This fallacy' consisted in the assumption that because the exclusive use nr abuse of wine and alcoholic drinks has occasioned an appalling amount of sin and misery, therefore they are in their essence a great evil. In a letter which appeared in the Southland Times of May 5. 1892. Mr Denniston wrote in reply to Dr Lucas as I now quote : ” Instead of going to the Scripture narrative and enquiring reverently what Christ did and appealing to his apostles for what he has said trirough them, Dr Lucas has constructed a Christ out of his own reasonings, and has dogunatised about what he must have done and iqhat it was impossible for him toido. Reduced ton oroposition his argument is this : that whatever can be abused to the hurt of man is vicious in its essence and cannot have had the Almighty for its creator and sponsor. But this we know is far from being the constitution of the world. Coming to the New Testament

-•nd making reference first of all to the supreme example, I would simply say that a natural and unforced interpretation iff tho narrative and a survey of all the circumstances of the miraclo at Cana will leave now, as they have left for ages, the impression that the wine there created was fermented wine, anti such as brought innocent hilarity to the assembled guests,” The weaker sex, who ■ow bear rule in nearly all the Protestant Churches in this colony, and who

lire now on an equality with men in' ihe election of our Parliament. have much need to be warned against -.these and dther false teachings. Instead of confiding too implicitly in these pastors • nd teachers who in some important matters arc deceiving and misleading them, they should do as Mr Denniston .advises, and go with reverence and humility direct to the Holy Scriptures and learn what Our Lord and Saviour and his inspired Apostles teach on the subject under consideration. In a letter signed “ Mother,” appearing a few years ago

i the writer argues as Dr. Lucas did, and is quite confident that, because excess In wine or alcoholic drinks has caused so much sin and misery therefore Our SavI iour did not create intoxicating wine at I Cana or bless it at the Last Supper, and that therefore it ought to be banished from the earth. She did not know that the same argument, if true, would deprive herself and all her sox of any light to live, move, or have any being on the earth. After the creation of mankind in Adam woman was God's first, greatest and best gift to man and essen.tial to his happiness. But it was she who brought sin and death and all our woe intif the xqorld, and all the evils fabled to have sprung out of Pandora's box. The same false logic would lead to the conclusion that the Saviour of the world was thei enemy of mankind. For did He not himself say,

“ Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth. I came not. to send peace but a sword, for I am come to set a man at variance with his father and: the daughter against her mother, and the dauglhiter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shaill i:e they of his own household.” Thus we learn that the greatest possible blessings to man may, by his sin, be so abused ns to occasion the greatest evils. Anyone reading the Scriptures with an open mind cannot fail to learn that wine a|nd even strong drink used with temperance and moderation, is a blessing given by God to mankind, though the excessive use or aliuse of it is accounted as a great sin and sternly denounced. The moral to be derived from these truths is that the Christian and just, remedy tor the evils of the drink' traffic is reform not Prohibition.—l am, etc.. BAMUEL [tODGKINSON. Invercargill, 29th April. To the Editor.

Sir,—The lucid argument set forth in your leader on Saturday has at last converted me to pro-boose. Heretofore I have l>een an unreasoning believer in Nolicense, but you have quite convinced me that it is wrong to punish a man for an offence that he does not commit. Perhaps I had better repeat your syllogism. The case for Prohibition is, as you state, ” Voluntary abstinence from crime is impossible therefore we must have criminal laws. Voluntary abstinence frdm drink is impossible (or impracticabhp therefore we must have prohibition.” Ynu object that Prohibitionists "cannot see that the criminal laws do not touch a man until he.is a criminal, whilst Prohibition enforces a penalty without an offence.” That is as clear as mud. So transparent is it that after studying your proposition I have felt strongly inclined to march up to the Times Office and hit you on the head witli a slub of your own leader in order to emphasise its logic. That impulse wrought my conversion. To bash you with anything so heavy or so lethal as your own leader would be assault and battery. I am n lawj-abiding citizen ; necessarily I am restrained from bashing you. That being so I should protest against being hauled before the beak and fined forty bob or three months for an offence which I did not commit. Such punishment of course would not, under present statutes, be meted out to me for the mere intent or desire to bash you, because " criminal laws do not touch a man until he is a criminal.” In your opinion, then, criminal laws are essentially punitive in purpose, not deterrent. But the law regarding assault and battery deters me from basiling you as aforesaid, just as Prohibition would to some extent deter me from getting drunk and disorderly whenn I chose. It would be a distinct interference with the liberty of the subject. Therefore—huroo for the subject's liberty to bash editors when the subject pleases, or to get blind paralytic drunk when he feels that way, and down with Prohibition ! In fact, to Sheol with law 'n- ’ordah ! Great is the logic Jf Toryism.—Your sarkastically. FRED 11. WISE. Invercargill, Ist May, We give this letter, an example of illogical nonsense, in full, merely in order that Prohibition writers will not have cause to complain that their correspondence is suppressed. We must give warning, however, that all letters as worthless and absurd as the above will not be treated with the same consideration.— Ed.)

(To the Editor). Sir,—l notice that you were pleased to condemn what you term the fallacious reasoning in a letter signed " Alert " appearing in the Evening Star of April 26th. I am not concerned to defend the writer of that letter, but the principle you condemn is an essential matter and therefore should be defended. “ Alert says : “ Father Hays is praised because he says voluntary total abstinence is the best cure for the drink evil. Every single. No-license advocate agrees with him in this, so there is no difference between us. It is also true to say that voluntary abstinence. from all crime is better than the necessity of laws to make breaches of that abstinence uncomfortable. We should all like to see a world that was voluntarily pure. The total abstinence campaign will continue even when Nolicense is carried.” The commonsense of the paragraph is obvious. Why is there a No-license agitation at all ? Simply because the earnest men who were advocating total abstinence found, even as Father Mathew did, that the results of moral suasion did not stand, and also that “ as fast as one man was cured another, and perhaps two, sank into the abyss.” What then is to be done?. Because an evil is established and has rested interests, and the evil usages are incorporated into the customs of the country, and it would seem like making a new rriine to interfere with the sale of lirfuor, are we to cry “’hands off ” and let the inexcusable habit Jf drinking alcohol as a beverage go on unchecked ? God forbid ! The Parliament of this country, having satisfied themselves that opium smoking was hurtful and dangerous, absolutely forbade its importation or manufacture, thereby creating a new sin in New Zealand. In thus declaring the holding and dealing in opium to be

a crime New Zealand has declared the Indian Government (that is for all practical purposes the British Government) to be a criminal Government, for with' the connivance and support of the British Government the Indian Government makes and sells immense quantities of opium in China. The British Government has insisted at the bayonet’s point on China allowing the importation of this drug. 1 wonder how New Zealanders would like that '? Until 18-10 that importation was prohibited in China, and the evil was largely in check. In Japan it was altogether prohibited and the evil. [has been practically stamped out. Opium is their bad temptation ; alcohol is ours. Can we in New Zealand say the Japanese were wrong in making a new sin when a vitiating indulgence threatened to destroy the nation ? No man in his senses would say so. But as regards alcohol we do not make a new sin when we declare for No-license. Assuming that there are 10,013 people in Invercargill, 10,000 of these are already under strict No-license law and penalties, simply because they have not got licenses. If Nolicense is carried next poll the thirteen publicans will be in exactly the same condition that the 10,000 citizens have hitherto been in. No better and no worse. The fact that the sale of alcohol has long been confined to a very few persons brands it at once as unsafe and dangerous. What is wot fit 'for general sale is not fit for general use. It is purely a medicine, and should be used as such. As the original paragraph says, V We should all like to see a world voluntarily pure and no repressive laws required.” It is as good sense "or us to say to the Christians who support lawmaking : “ You are beginning at the wrong end. Make everybody Christians and thus laws will not be needed,”- as for others to say to us “ Make everybody total abstainers and No-license will not be needed.” Christianity is the great uplifting force.- Temperance, virtue, and respect for law and property all flow from Christianity. In an absolutely Christian community laws and police to enforce them should be unnecessary. There would be no need for a No-license agitgtion, as the traffic would die for lack of custom. In the No-license law us well as in others no one is a criminal until he breaks that law. Hence W Alert's ” paragraph is not a fallacy after all, but a sol&rl-y stated truth. I admit that Nolicense deprives certain men of a convenience for satisfying an unnatural appetite. but it does not penalise a man who has committed no offence.—l om, . etc., G. BERNARD NICHOLLS.