THE COMING STRUGGLE IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 305, 28 May 1896, Page 9

THE COMING STRUGGLE IN NEW ZEALAND.

As outlined in our last week’s issue, the initial steps for the great contest which will by effluxion of time take place in November next have already been taken by the Prohibitionists, and we are bound to admit that from a prohibition point of view those steps have trended in the direction of comparative success. A temperance convention was this week held at Palmerston North, at which it is stated 140 delegates were present. These delegates represented districts such as Wellington, Hawke’s Bay, and Taranaki, and though in comparison with the large population of these districts, the delegates were numerically small, we have no doubt but their organisation was perfect ; and it is certain that the members forming the convention will, through the medium of the Press and the platform, strive to make the people of New Zealand believe that it was an unqualified success. It is one of the chief characteristics of the Prohibition party to go in for a system of thorough and complete advertisement of everything they do, though at the same time we question if the financial position of any journal in New Zealand is much strengthened by the notoriety they obtain, and in sporting parlance we may say that the party alluded to have succeeded in obtaining a wide of the whole of their transactions “ on the never.” How long this will be allowed to continue the newspaper owners of New Zealand can alone determine. It is a remarkable fact that, no matter how rash and untruthful their statements maybe, however libellous the declarations made by hired mountebanks at public meetings and in the Press are, the “ trade ” rarelv take any notice of such statements, and seldom take any steps either individually or collectively to disprove the slanders or to vindicate the character of any individual so slandered. In fact, the rabid prohibitionist and the slanderous teetotal fanatic has been given an inch of toleration to pursue a libellous and slanderous course, and with an audacity and a license unparalleled in any other case they have taken more than the proverbial ell to traduce the public and private characters of those who are legitimately engaged in the trade they as hirelings are instructed to oppose. It has been said that the extremes advocated by the Prohibition party have rendered, and will render nugatory and non-effective, any objects they professedly desire to obtain; but at the present time this phase of the question is problematical, for just as the constant dropping of water will make a hole in an adamantine rock, so may the constant reiteration of statements, however extreme and improbable, take hold of the public mind with a result which may prove of incalculable injury to public property. It is true that there is a widespread feeling that many of those engaged in stumping the country in the prohibition interest are silently praying that prohibition will not eventuate lest they may, like Othello, find their occupation gone • and there is no doubt that this feeling on their part is intensified by the recognition that if thrown out of their present employment they would be worse than useless for anything else For this reason it mav be reasonable to suppose that the — professedly—strongest advocates of prohibition at the present time

will prove insiduously the strongest opponents to the accomplishment of the cause. Of course, the “instinct-of selfpreservation is the first law of Nature, and we think there is no class in this or any other community who have a higher appreciation of the importance of this proverb, with an intensely selfish application, than some of the hirelings and agitators in their advocacy of prohibition. It may be asked if this is actually the case. Why need those engaged in the liquor trade fear either the influence, or result of the operations of those agitators ? The reply is a very simple one. Injury may, and possibly will, be effected in spite of them, and mainly because some people, wh.o are always of the same opinion as their last adviser, may attend a meeting addresed by some mountebank, and under the erroneous belief that they were doing God and the State service, record their votes for the destruction of thousands of .pounds worth of property. We have no desire to discount the intelligence of the ordinary elector of New Zealand; on the contrary, w.e are satisfied that no higher order of. intelligence can be found in the British dominions than that which obtains amongst the people in New Zealand. At the same time, it must be admitted that, men and women of the highest mental culture, and possessed of the largest fund of general information, frequently make / mistakes upon some particular subject, from the simple cause of not having given that subject meritorious consideration. Take, for instance, the ordinary New Zealand boy. Would it not be sheer fallacy to say that he is not keen of observation and as well qualified as any boy in any country in the world to form just and accurate conclusions from his observations. Yet if the New Zealand boy was standing behind a high and impenetrable fence, past which a lot of sheep were passing on the opposite side and bells were ringing, would he not naturally conclude that every sheep carried a bell, even though not one in twenty of the flock had suspended around his neck the instrument which caused such a tinkling? The moral to be deducted from this is for the Trade to show that the bell-wethers of prohibition are making all the “ tink-j . ling,” whilst the majority of the flock will, if properly attended to, travel along, the road or graze in their pastures in peace and quietness, especially if the easy methods available are made use of to satisfy them that it is in their 'very best interest to do so.