KING COUNTRY LIQUOR.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 11

KING COUNTRY LIQUOR.

LICENSING QUESTION. BiSHOP CHERRINGTON’S OPINION. ! ( ) FORMER STATEMENT CONFIRMED. The statement made some time ago by the Bishop of Waikato in respect of the King Country liquor laws, when he put forward, as a newcomer, his views on the matter very clearly, is upheld by a supplementary statement which appears in the Diocesan Magazine. In his monthly letter he makes no apologies for his opinion and speaks straightly on the question as he regards it. “As a result of a speech of mine at a semi-public gathering,” 1 states Bishop Cherrington, “early last month on the liquor question in the King Country, a certain amount of newspaper controversy has ensued. As chaplain in IBs Majesty’s Forces and as Archdeacon of Mauritius, one was not allowed to contribute to correspondence in papers, so that habit has become more or less fixed. As the matter is of such importance, however, and one of our many diocesan problems, I am bringing it before our readers in order 'that they may judge for themselves what, if anything, is the best thing we ought to do in the matter. “As all our readers are aware, in 1884 the Maoris petitioned Parliament that no liquor should be allowed in the King Country. Parliament issued a proclamation that none should be sold in the King Country. This was not what the Maoris asked for, nor was it in the least degree of any value. Moreover, times have changed, and the King Country cannot to-day be called, as it was prior to the Main Trunk railway going through it, a Maori stronghold. I should doubt if one could call it Maori country now, any more than the rest of the North Island. “I maintain that it would be better for all sections of the community for licensed houses to be established in that part of the Dominion, as in others, so that liquor can be properly and decently sold, instead of its being introduced wholesale, illicitly treated and illegally sold, as it is at the moment. Everyone knows that the licensed houses are well conducted and that the licensees are honourable men, anxious that their honour shall be above reproach in every way; and everyone who knows anything at all, if he is living in the King Country, knows that the condition of things is, to put it mildly, far from what it should be in this respect. The clergy, leading members of our church, and many others, have all given mo information which entirely warranted my saying what I said the other day, and warrants us, as church people, in carefully studying the matlcr to see if we cannot do something to remedy the utterly undesirable state of things at present existing.” “Of course one can see perfectly well what lies behind any opposition to the change which 1 have suggested. I am afraid it comes from no desire to be fair to the people who are living in the King Country, not from any real love of the. Maoris, but from an exaggerated regard for the fetish of prohibition. This latter is, of course, another question altogether, and t shall here do no more than briefly warn our readers against it on the following grounds i

1 It is contrary to the express teaching of St. Paul. See Colossians 11., 20 lo 23.

2. It is Manichean in tendency and Manicheism was a heresy condemned by the Church in the third century. 3. It is unmoral. Wo have the divine gift of freewill and except in the most extreme cases, such as our doing harm to other people, no one has the right to interfere with anyone’s gift of choice. Character is built up on choosing the right, it being understood that one has the power to do the wrong. Take away the power of the choice and you destroy the moral fibre. 4. It is a retrograde .movement. It is desirable that men should learn to do right, not because they are compelled to do so, but because they do not wish themselves to do anything else, and education is leading us that way. Insobriety is decreasing annually, as any worker in large parishes in the Old Country, and as any student of English literature is well aware. a. No State has the right to frame laws which do not commend themselves to the good, that is the moral sense of the community at large. If it does, disaster is bound to follow. I commend what I have said, both about the problem in the King Country and about prohibition, to the attention of our readers. Clear thinking and fair dealing are required with regard to them both.”