THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION,

Star (Christchurch), Issue 526, 26 January 1870, Page 3

THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION,

'I ho following speech was delivered by the Rev Dr Temple, then Bishop-Designate, now Bishop, of Kxeter, at the annual peneral meeting of the United Kingdom Alliance, held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, ou Oct. 19, at which he presided: —

The Rev Dr Temple rose amid most enthusiastic and prolonged cheering, the wholo audience rising, he said he hoped that his presence there that evening might in some degree be considered a sort of answer to those who accused the United Kingdom Alliance of being led away by so much fanaticism that they forgot even 'the object at which they were aiming, because they were bo resolute to attain it by their own means and l.y no other. He himself was not, and he did not promise that he ever would ue, a member of that Alliance. Ho had not bad sufficient time to study the subject with that closeness which would justify him in joining in all that had been done ; and, of course, until he had done so, he could not really say whether or not he should be prepared to become a member of any society whatever. Moreover, tie was not a total abstainer, lit did not, ctrtainly, very often drink any intoxicating liquor whatever, perhaps not more than once in a month at the outside; and he knew perfectly well that there might arise circumstances in which he should think it his duty as a Christian to take the pledge in order to assist others (loud cheers), even though he felt no need of any such pledge for himself. Nor washeprepared tossy that in any particular separate opportunity he should go along with tlie Alliance in all their aims, and that he should be prepared on every occasion to support everything that hnd yet been proposed in the name of the Alliauce. But, for all that, he was there. (Applause.) He told the committee what h'l3 opinions were before, and still they thought it well that lie should come ; and he himself was only too glad to show that, although he did not agreV with the. Alliance in all their measures, "yet no one should go before hiiui in the 'cnthu-

.«iastie desire to attain their object. ! (Applause.) Corta:nly be should hope that in the great purpose of suppressing drunkenness in this country he should not be found wanting whenever lie could see a clear way to doit. lie diil not think that it coukl bj for one moment denied that tiiere whs ho other cvii at rrcsent in this country so deadly in its opera: ion hs the drun'cennes-i which prev^ile! among \i9. Lst it be gratUEii that we nin-t not to fur intc-rfL're with < ur fellow-subjects us to &ny there sba'l be ft hindra-ici; put up:m any mmi's inclination that be nviy ruin body and soul. Still, even those who claimed Ibis couhi not deny that sit present it was not a j question inirely <'f s ippressing trrtffi'i in liquor. It was a question whether or nnt we j sboul 1 make s.nne unitud smd determined effort to remove out of the way of l!ie labouring class a temptation which pursued them through their live?, and from which it was almost impossi'o'c L> escape. If it were true that stilt there nu<<ht to be the means c-.f obtaining intoxicating liquors if a man chose to get tlieni, yet it did n'"t follow from thfit that lie should always have ibe temptation, as it were, thrust in bis very face. It did not follow that he should hardly be able to go to or come t ark fro'ii his work without finding a puMu.house inviting him to his o.vu mischief. It did not follow that f*o where he would he should have no escupe from the allurements. At any rate we should, if we cnuld do no more, endeavour very largely to diminish the number of publichouses and beersbop3 in thU country, until it might be fairly said, in answer t > the efforts of the Alliance, that the number of thes3 houses was so few th-it the temptation had gone. let them consider for a moment what the temptation wrb Men who wire hard at work in tlic day, whose frames were exhausted with their toil, who felt within them the natural weariness and lassitude which labour produced, were then shown something which they knew well gave them a temporary relief, who knew that, at any rate f.<r a short lime, they might have something like a real pleasure, though it was but of a vicious kind. Men who were worn and weary were taken, as it were, at their very weakest moment. Was it just to ihru^t in their faces this temptation, which in their own conscience they knew they ought not to approach ? Let them ask any labouring mnu's wife what she thought of it. (Hear, hear.) A9k the women of this country what they would do if only they hid the power put in their hands. Ask those who were the real guardians of the comfort of lmne, those to whom we must look for the education of the little children, those whose happiness was bo tin I up with the way in which their husbands lived, what the beershop nnd the pub'.ichouse had done them, and what they would do if they could with the beershop and ».be publichouse. But it was not merely that wherever these pubUchouses stood they were a terrible temptation ; but every such publichouse, as it were by the operation of a natural lnw, gathered round it a band of mischievous missionaries who hardly knew the horrible evil they were doing, but who did their very utmost to gather others within the net into which they had been entrapped themselves, who could not let a friend pass without adding to the temptation he felt already in iiis body, the natuml temptation of friendly fooling nnd good fellowship, and who would seduce the unhappy man against his own conscience to go in and seek the relief which he knew full wel would take a terrible vengeance afterwards. They were told sometimes that if wives would but make their husbands' homes happy and comfortable, they would not be ao ready to go to the public-house. But they | must consider how all this time the very money which the wife wouli naturally use for her husband's comfort was spent in the purchase of drink (cheers) ; how the children were pinched, and how the home became squalid, uncomfortable, and wretched, and how the mm, after lie bad wasted his wages upon that whii h could be no real happiness to him, went home and found there was nothing to make his home really comfortable, and how the poor woman found thiit she had not only to contend ngaist this terrible foe, but had to surrender beforehand the very armour with which she had to fight. (Cheers.) About this he confessed he had absolutely no manner of doubt whatever, that it was a plain and imperative duty at any rate, to diminish the temptations of drunkenness which now existed, and to diminish them to such an extent that for all practical purposes it made no matter just at present whether they were aiming at diminution or prohibition.