RATIONAL LIBERTY AND TRUE TEMPERANCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 77, 13 November 1911, Page 5

RATIONAL LIBERTY AND TRUE TEMPERANCE.

BY PROFESSOR SALMOND. Prohibitionists are fond of adducing 'statistics from no-licenso areas as exhibiting the reformatory efflicacy of their favourite moral remedy. They generally overlook the most remarkable example, but I find it recorded in a recent number of the “Tribune,” and it will be read with interest and astonishment. “There is a community where prohibition prevails, and the conditions there are such as to make the electors weigh .their votes at the forthcoming elections. It is an ideal prohibition locality, there being no secret drinking and the importation of liquor from without is prevented by rigid barriers. The residents are orderly, crime is unknown, and the air of quietude is charmingly in contrast with the bustle in localities where there are hotels. The community is guided by a few simple rules. There is no immorality. Everyone is educated. There arc no debts, and no quarrels, and consequently no courts. The few guardians of the peace have nothing to do. Everyone is well dressed and well fed. No.curfew bell is required, because ail Tffie residents retire at an early hour. There are no idlers and no absentees from worship. None need have any thought for the morrow. Occasionally, though rarely, an unruly one goes away, but lie invariably returns to renew the peaceful and regular life he has so thoughtlessly abandoned. Where is this ideal community, you ask, where the exclusion of liquor can bring about such happy results ? My answer' is, ‘ln gaol.’” . This example is instructive and arresting./ It cun be no longer denied that prohibition prohibits nor questioned whether it is an efficient remedy. • Only give us enough of it. Lot the Walls bo- sufficiently high ard strong; multiply bolts, bars, handcuffs, batons and policemen; carry it but witli a hand high and imperious enough, and lo! what a moral transformation scene. The lesson is manifeot. Only make New Zealand a huge gaol with the encircling sea for prison walls, and we shall see Paradise restored. We have at last discovered the gospel of the redemption of humanity. The clergy themselves confess that prohibition will do more for mankind in seven years than they have done in a thousand, and they are therefore agitating for a release from tho irksome and useless business' of preaching the Gospel so that they may peregrinate the country in order- to preach the gospel of holts and hai's and magnify the works of tho law.- Unfortunately when we get over our first impressions and look more narrowly certain doubts seize tho mind. ‘The prisoners in the stern hands of the prohibition gapiers gesticulate well and move with the utmost propriety, but it is to bo feared that the men are no better and remain a collection of depraved scoundrels'. Prohibition has made clear, the outside of the cup and the platter. It has swept the floor and garnished the walls of the house. It has done no more and never will do any more. The clergy had better, after all. stick to the Gospel of Christ’s royal law of liberty, and not abandon faith in the weapons of the spirit. There is another difficulty—the gaol works its reformation only by means of tho utmost sternness, and by carrying prohibition to the utmost lengths. If wo are going to reform Now Zealand ;by gaql. methods- we must >do likewise. Weak' measures and half measures will not suffice. It is to be feared that, our new reformers do not realise the magnitude of the task they are undertaking. We must have armies of officials, spies and informers; a thousand prying eyes at every port; a host of argus-eyed police to cope with the endless ingenuities of men’s iniquity, sharpened by the consciousness of waging a righteous war against the arbitrary infraction of natural rights. It is. only when the law has been proclaimed that the difficulties will begin. It is to be feared that the law can never be enforced; for New Zealand cannot be converted into a gaol. . . , It is a natural fallacy of tne human mind and a-besetting snare when confronted with any frequent source of sin and to reason that the right and proper course is to destroy the occasion. If your tooth causes pain, extract it! Is not that the most immediate practical suggestion ? If the body is occasion of sin and evil, then maim it, scourge it, crucify it. If civilisation floods the worlds with evils let us abandon it and return to the sweet simplicity of the South Sea Islader. If books' are making irroligius sceptics, let us prohibit their printing. If science aids men to make murderous weapons, let us throttle science. If wine is an occasion of harm, let ns ban it as we ban snakes. But as most men like to see an idea concreted in an example or parable, they may read the following narrative with interest. A Chinese who had suffered much in marriage retired with his son to a mountain inaccessible to lilyfooted women. He never spoke even of the,existence of women to the boy. He always went down to the market alone, until, becoming old and feeble, he was compelled to take the young man .with him to carry the bag of rice. He argued: My son has never heard of women, and does not know what they are. If he does see one of thorn by chance I shall take care that ho does not speak to her. As they were on .the first occasion leaving the market together, the son suddenly stopped, .and pointing to three approaching objects, enquired: “Father, what are those things?” The father cried nut : “Turn your head away, they are devils.” ' The son turned awa\p his head, and walked on in silence. From that day, when lie had scon the things and they had looked at him from under their fans, he lost his appetite and -was afflicted with melancholy. For some time the puzzled parent could get no satisfactory answer to Ills enquiries; but at length the young man burst out, “Oh, father, that tallest devil! That tallest devil!” (See “John Chinaman at Home,” page !9S). . , This is a lovely example of the futility of attempts at the inoralisation of human nature by artificial arguments. That Chinaman had in him the makings of an ardent prohibitionist He had suffered much from womankind. Ho will have his revenge. He will ignore their existence. Ho will ■as far as /possible, prohibit them. He will make it, by stern forbiddal and repression, Impossible for his son to suffer as he had suffered. He will cut off the possibility of domestic misery. He discovered that his negative method was a failure. Such a discovery awaits all those who propose to make it a crime and a sin to have or to dring a glass of wine.*