BLUE RIBBON MISSION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5096, 2 September 1884, Page 4

BLUE RIBBON MISSION.

• Mr T. W. Glover, of the United Kingdom Alliance, addressed a crowded meeting in the Oddfellows' Hall last evening, in connection with his Blue Eibbon mission to Chri3tchurcli. The chair was taken by the Key F. W. Mtt, who introduced the lecturer in a short speech. The choir, under Mr H. Johnston's leadership, sang a Temperance melody, and the lecturer, who wa3 received with applause, began his addre?3. 3lr Glover's subject was " Local Option/ and be had "no two ways about it" in his method of dealing with it. Absolute prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks is, in Mr Glover's opinion, the only remedy for the evil 3 which accompany that traffic. All methods to curtail or control the traffic had failed, in his opinion, to put a stop to these evil 3, and he contended that wherever there is a district whose people desire that there shall be no public-houses in their midst, that district should hay- the right, by a vote of its inhabitants, '•> prohibit the granting of any license wicliin it. He hits straight out from the shoulder to fell *>rhat he believes to be an evil which cannot be mitigated without remaining an evil still. In enforcing his arguments, Mr ' Glover 13 very happy in the selection of anecdotes. Her? is one that puts his views of the duty of the cominunHv with regaid to the drink traffic in av< • clear light. In a certain town there li la Quaker, remarkable, as all his t ut are, for his love of peace, and in tha same town vas a noisy braggart, determined to nualw the Quaker quarrel. With this

intention the braggart called on the Quaker, and, after making a variety of accusations, challenged him to fight. The Quaker regaled his enemy on a grilled beefsteak, coffee, and pipes and tobacco, of all which the braggart partook, but was still a3 determined to fight as ever. Then the Quaker took him by the scruff of the neck, led him to the door, remarking as he did so, that he had tried to pacify him with a meat offering, a drink offering, and a burnt offering, all of which had failed, and therefore he tried a " heave " offering and kicked him out. The lecturer applied this anecdote by saying that all means had been tried to check the evils of the drink traffic without success, and the time had come to make a " heave" offering to Bacchus, and prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquors altogether. He was especially severe on the moderate drinkers — the " little drop drinkers," as he styled them— who, by their example, led others into slippery places. He was eloquent in his reference to Father Matthew's Mission, who had reduced the consumption of liquor in Ireland by one half, but he added that towards the close of his career Father Matthew was convinced that without some such legislation as the lecturer pleaded for, Ireland would go back to her drinking again, as in truth she had done. He gave an amusing description of a row between the publicans and the grocers (who hold licenses) in Victoria, and noted tbat the former wished the latter to be deprived of their licenses without any compensation. Ihe Duke of Wellington's Act to establish ale-houses, and Mr Gladstone's introduction of light wines, were referred to as instances of bad legislation ; while the keeping of public-houses closed all night and on Sundays, had helped to stop drunkenness, because they were prohibitive measures. He made a contrast between the towns of Bessbrook and Newry, in Ireland, distant five miles from each other ; in the former there was no hotel, and in the latter many. There was no Police Station and no workhouse in the one, and in the other almost as many police and soldiers were required to keep order as there were inhabitants in the town. Mr Glover concluded with an exhortation to all temperance reformers to work in one determined body, and not to rest till the drink traffic was entirely prohibited by the power being given to the people themselves to veto the issue of a single license in their community. The address to-night will be given in the Oddfellows* Hall, and is on " Labour and Wages." To-morrow evening Mr Glover speaks in the Durham street Wesleyan Church. „____________