Page 2 Advertisements Column 3

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 23, 13 December 1919, Page 2

(Extract from "The New Zealand Ti roes » April 7ft; ■. . , Extended Report-Published by Ar rangement with the Caftsc, t P^ ; ''•'•:•.• tery.) ; ■>■ < I':-' i! PROHIBITION The following letter of His Grace Afchttshop Redwood (Metropolitan) was read yesterday in all the clwrches of the Archdiocese of Wellington:

Archbishop's ' House, Wellington, March 25, 191!). Rev. Dear Father,— , , . . . , The clergy and people of this Archdiocese and .of the other' dioceses in New Zealand naturally look to their Metropolitan for right guidance on the matter of prohibition—national prohibition—with which this Dominion is threatened. I hope such a calamity will never befall'it. For what is the altogether untenable position of the prohibition advocates? It is ■'Aiis: If they argue that wine (alcoholic drinks) is an evil in itseli, thert absolute prohibition, even for Sacramental purposes, ..should emphartically follow; but this argument transfers responsibility from the agent to the instrument, and so destrovs morality; moreover, it is contrary to Scripture, and the emphatic teaching and example of Christ, who used wine Himself, and in instituting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, made it oart of the essential matter. If they -argue that wine, or alcoholic drink, is not an evil in itself, then regulation of its traffic is surely the moral course to adopt. But if prohibition is urged on account of the misuse which some make of it, then, to be morally consistent, the same people should demand that because the sexual instinct is abused bv some to the extreme of impurity, therefore all union of the sexes should be forbidden. On the same principle, printing, the theatre, dancing, should be forbidden. All this would, of course, be absurd, and is almost wholly blasphemy against marriage, which is a holy ordinance of God. and is honored bv all men. The position of the prohibitionist is accordingly against logic and common sense. REFORM IS NFFDFD—NOT PROHIBITION— reform wise and moderate and patient in the light of experience, education,, and true morality; in the interests, pf the great body of the publie, ancl' especiallv of moderate men who 'constitute the majority of Jlhe people.: To brand New , Zealanders, whoiiare generally fa sober community, .as a,drjnktsoddem people, demanding drastic legislation.,.is a vile* and''mom strous'fcalumhv. The whole •■ scheme,, of national' prohibition is a great, st.en backward; it would be an odious and inqnisitonial tyranny, foreign to the basic principle and . spirit of British law. ..As t the A™bbishops, last October, aptly stated in their important pronouncement. "We view with misfivinc and alarm the crude proposals of ;*imose m-ohibitionist* who demand drastic legislation which would be an unwarrantable infringement on the reasonable liberty of the mass of the people: which would,most probably be.inefficacious for the purpose in view, and which, in the end, would produce more evil than it would rePROHIBITION IS INDEED FATAL TO LIBERTY, because it involves a serious outrage against the natural rights and liberties of individuals,, and contemptuously disregards the claims of dissenting minorities. It is also fatal to TEMPERANCE, though not -a-.'few. sophistically confound temperance prohibition. Temperance is a ;growth, like all. mowd daws, in the' individual'' and'' thV cortfrnunity. Prohibition proposes to establish temperance ac* cording to the Criminal Cpde. Temperance is positive, and appeals tfe mam's sense of self-control to his reason and conscience. Prohibition is negative, and appeals to the sense of fear, to pains and penalties, and utterly ignores man's habits and education. Temperance is the development of man's righteousness and self-control. Prohibition is the reduction of man to a position of compulsory national total abstinence by the criminal law: Temperance is the heritage and blessing of a free people. Prohibition is the yoke which a country constructs for_jtself when it confesses its inability to self-control, and from'which it will take long years to free itself: Temperance is the badge of self-resipect arid orderliness. PROHIBITION IS THE SYMBOL FOR HYPOCRISY AND DECEPTION. ' All the secret encouragement to sly drinking, the utter lack of control, the absence of all authority, the vile decoctions served, are sure to generate a low moral atmosphere of great mischief. And such places of sly drinking greatly appeal to the young. Once let a young man*become contaminated by the moral tone of the "sly grogs,"' he will bo damaged morally, if not utterly ruined. Prohibition will undoubtedly generate lawlessness. Its extreme character, its farreaching measures, its enormous penalties, stamp it as a grinding despotism—the fruitful parent of disorder. PROHIBITION IS AS DESPOTIC AS ANY LAW OF THE WORST DESPOT. (It utterly disregards and tramples under foot the undoubted rights of minorities, whom it grossly insults by the way it Haunts their wishes and destroys their privileges. The minority under it would obey or suffer outrageous penalties. Wherever it prevails it is monstrous in every way, and grossly insulting to the intelligence of the largrer majority. If it is carried in New Zealand we must expect that shortly the land will be filled with dens, all of which will be schools of hypocrisy, evasion, lawlessness, and deception. One extreme begets another. , Prohibition would plunge us into a course i' folly, bringing turmoil into the politics '■*•! the country, perjury and evasion i»>tO the courts, and deception into tiie people. Let it not be argued tlisi < "sly grog" would become an impossibility when, throughout the whole Dominion there would be n.» liquor to be procured. And what co ild prevent the manufacture of sly-grog in the country and its introduction by a