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Observer, Volume XL, Issue 13, 29 November 1919, Page 3

We condemn as false in moral teaching and in fact the notion (so long sedulously propagated by "the trade") that the Catholic Church — either in or out of this Dominion — is, in some Avay, chained or spancelled to v BreAA'er's Vat; and (speaking for ourselves personally) a long experience has convinced our inmost soul that the evils of the drink traffic, Avithin our Diocese, have gone far beyond the limits «. toleration; and that the worthy, Cod-fearing, and laA\'-abiding people in the business have about as much poAver to reform it as a dozen bottles of rose-Avater have of sweetening the air of a* soap-factory. We have long ago abandoned hope of such a reform of "the trade" from Avithin; and Avith our dying breath we would declare it our conscientious belief that there is a real, solid hope National Prohibition for the deep physical and moral and economic mischiefs of the licensed and unlicensed traffic in alcoholic liquors. That is "the penn'orth of our thought," in tabloid form. We had faith, nor have Aye now, in electoral no-license "islands" bounded by Beer. Such "islands" may be high; they are not "dry"; sepage and percolation are both extensive and peculiar there; and in no place, perhaps, does the traffic touch deeper depths ©f shame. There is high hope in the high seas as the frontier of a sober nation.— Auckland "Month."