THE PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 1658991, 18 July 1918, Page 6

THE PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

To irb.o Editen' of the "Tininni I fern,ld '' Sir, —I see tlio Rev. fllr Gray J'ro.tf Dvinedin was giving n Icct/in'o in Tl-1 maru on- the drink <ii:t\stion. I om'.v ■■glanced nt bis lecture I>ut. when I went. 10 look it over afterwards it. \vn« 'utn'ii* cd. Jle said that over .tM ,000,000 wn't Sjpent on whisky, ;in<l wont ou to h»,v -what' it would pay lor. His figured were misleading, th<-y wrro fur< lw ] sweeping. Tlicy were like a qtuvjlc doc-tor's medicine, meant to euro anything. What ho .vants is nut a drop to conic into tho country. A ]iith> while ago a crank came to mo to sign a paper to get. i)k> hotels dosed rib sis o'clock. 110 ,«aid it would get rho war finished sooner.. I said "No; shot and thoH will finish tho wtiv' I said, "If a man takes too much yon can got an order <u;fc against him." All those quacks go to extremes; they are like the AVesfc Coast miners; 110 sooner do they get what thov want than tlicv want another tiling. We will tak'o the average farmer. He can take » glass of whisky and leavo it alone no liome and abroad, and .some of thoso men are bringing thousands of foreign capital into tho country every yea"'*, and all the wealth in our country comes off the land and from tho men on the 'and. is it fair 'that a crank with his nostrums shoul l havi; power with a Government to say what, such men .are not to drink. I would like to know ! what Mr Gray thinks of tlio great Master who mado tvin© at the marriage, at Cann. But. Christ was th, brosul orange, Mr Gray is the narrow gauge'. Mr Gray never thinks that ho is encroaching on another man's liberty, and al! these, people arc too sweeping in their assertc-cms. J once hoard a quack in the Noit.li Island holding forth., He said there was more nourishment in as much oatmeal as would ho on the point of a luiife, than there was in a ga'lon of stout. Another crank about . t\veli\> years ago was standing for Parliivnent. Ho said in the .Hunter school that he bad two sons who went to the South African war, and ho'would sooner sec them in t! c-ir coffin than dtink a glass ot whisky. I was crossing sheep over a river in the North I«.!and oneo, and get ■wet up to the middle. It was a I cold raw night, and I toolc a cramp or p. colic, and would have died very socn but for two glasses of whisky—and f •vill never turn my back on an old friend.-—I am,, etc.. J. S. WATSON. July 'ICj 1918