"The Tyranny of Prohibition."

Thames Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 8610, 15 March 1897, Page 2

" The Tyranny of Prohibition."

[To the Editor of the Thames Sta*.] Sib, —I had resolved not to reply to your remarks on the above subject in Friday's issue—believing the weakness and triteness of the same would prove a most cogent argument in favor of Prohibition — but I was fearful lost my silence would be misunderstood by yourself and other advocates of the liquor traffic. Sir, I hate misrepresentation, aud a cause which needs bolstering up •by it I regard as a bad one. I charge you, sir, with the offence of misrepresenting our demands. You say: "The bigots of to-day would use Prohibition . . . not to force man to do his duty , . .

but to tell him what he must put into his mouth." I challenge you to prove that statement. If you will prove to me where and when the Prohibition party have ever made the demand to decide what " a man shall put into his mouth " I will give £5 to the local Hospital, providing that if you fail, you will do the same. It is what men sell in order to put into other people's mouths we wish to see prohibited. Let the puplican drink his own liquor and no one will complain; it is his selling it to others against which we protest. You say " Prohibition is tyrannical because it represents an effort by a section of the community to enforce the imperial veto on the remainder." Well, sir, will you be surprised when I assert that no right to sell liquor has ever been recognised in this colony by the Legislature. This business has been allowed to exist only by permission annually granted. You are prohibited from selling, and so is everyone in the Thames electorate, except 31 individuals. If these 31 have received permission to sell for one year only, do you still mean

to tell the public that, if say 3000 ou of the 5000 electors on the Thames roll decide by votes, cast at the ballot box that permission to sell be not granted next year, it is a " tyrannical demand" that their wishes shall be earned out ? Is it not rather a "tyrannical demand" and out of all harmony with the principles of democratic government that the wish «f the 2000 should be respocted and that of the 3000 ignored ? Do you deny the right of the people to decide this question ? If so, then " not a single Labor Bill on the Statute Book is defensible if the right of the people to prevent the sale of lintoxicating liquor be denied " —so says Sir Robert Stout. You sir, admit the value of moral suasion in promoting temperance reform. Why is it we resort to legislation in effecting other reforms, but are told it is a " tyrannical demand " when we ask to have legislation applied to a traffic which, according to Air Gladstone, is productive of more evil than the three great scourges of mankind— i.e., famine, war, and pestilence—put together ? Will you answer this, sir ? If I keep cows which are afflicted with cancer and retail the milk on the Thames, is it a " tyrannical demand " that I should be prohibited? Or would you, sir, advise only moral suasion ? If I kill diseased bullocks and sell the boef wholesale or retail, is it a " tyrannical demand " that I should be pro» hibited? Kindly point out to. us, sir, why it is tyrannical in one case and not in the other. Be smoking, tea drinking, __ and beef eating, allow me to say when the traffic in tobacco, tea, and beef produces the misery, crime, lunacy, pauperism, and death which the traffic in intoxicating liquor produces, then we will go in for prohibiting the sale of these articles. But I fear you and I will have handed in our checks before then, Kindly insert capital " P's " in your reply and oblige.—l am, &c, Saml. J. Serpell.