PROHIBITION FALLACIES

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6596, 21 September 1899, Page 1

PROHIBITION FALLACIES

(Published by arrangement.) A MISSTATEMENT CORRECTED. Under tbe heading of "What the Drink Does," a writer quotes the Rev P. B. Power's statement that " the drink has filled the workhouses. If there were no such thing as drink, more than three-fourths 0 f the people now in workhouses would never have found tlieir way there." Now, an inadverent error may be pardoned, but when the error has been proved to be such by irrefutable evidence, its repetition is inexcusable and suggests a readiness to adopt any means, no matter how contemptibly unscrupulous, to catch the unwary and deceive the uninformed. Official figures show Maine, which for nearly fifty years has been a prohibition State, to have a ratio of paupers to population greater than the State of nonprohibitory' New York. New Hampshire, another of the prohibitory States, in 1890 had 3036 paupers per million of population compared with New York's 1713. Comparing less populous States, lowa, under prohibition, had, in 1890, a ratio of paupers per million of population amounting to 848, while Minnesota, without prohibition, had a ratio of 280 paupers per million of population only. If these figures mean anything at all, they certainly prove that the chief cause of pauperism lies outside of the drink traffic, and that prohibition offer's absolutely no protection against it. No doubt this oftexploded fallacy will continue to do service in the interests of prohibition, but to those who know, it will only carry the conviction that a cause which keeps facts in the background and trades upon fraudulent fictions must have a sadly demoralising' effect upon all who become infatuated with it. WHAT PROFESSOR CLARKE SAYS. In a letter to the " Daily Mail," Toronto, Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, writes : — Prohibition is a serious- interference with personal freedom. It is aloohol to-day, it may be tobacco to-morrow, it may be something else the day after. This is not the way to make men good, or true, or strong. It is sometimes terrible to sec a teetotaller eat, arid Sir Henry Thompson says that overeating does more harm physically and morally than .over-drinking. Prohibition leads to secret drinking and the morphine habit. The latter is comparatively unknown in Canada, whereas it prevails extensively in the United States." THE KEY J. C. FARTHING. Giving cvidencE. before the Canadian Royal Commission, the Rsv J. C. Farthing, a total abstainer, said: — "I would not favour the enactment of a prohibitory law for the Dominion. In my judgment a prohibitory law would not be enforced, judging from our experience of the Scott Act. Then, again, I think it is taking away the Christian ! liberty of a. man. 1 do not think anybody has a right to take away from a man his I liberty to say what he shall eat and drink. I speak as a total abstainer of some years, I have a rig&t.to .use my liberty to give it up, and ■ I;" do not think any man has a right to take from me the liberty of drinking what I wish. This is the view I take of prohibition." Before the same Commission, the Rev Thos. Gebghagan said : "My feeling is that there is such a gap between public feeling and the execution of the law, that it would, at present, be impossible to enforce it. It would be a dead letter upon the statute books." 1988