AN IMPOSSIBLE “CRUSADE.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 721, 31 December 1903, Page 23

AN IMPOSSIBLE “CRUSADE.”

An article on the general question of compensation, which we reprint from the London organ of the Trade, deals inicidentially with a subject that has more than once received notice in this column. It is as old as drink, but, judging by the vigor with which it is approached every day, one might suppose it to be the very newest discovery. Can men be made sober by Act of Parliament ? People have lived long lives and gone down to their graves in the belief that men can. And people will go on believing it to the end of time, notwithstanding that experience, both by direct example and by inference, gives a negative answer every time it is put in the witness box. The whole armoury of the No-License Party is efficient, not against vhose whose vagrant appetite craves for alcohol in excessive quantity, but against those who make moderate and rational use of liquor, and who depend upon the •provisions of the licensing law to protect them from adulteration and other evils inseparable from unrecognised trades. Drunkenness is an awful curse, showing results as shocking and demoralising as any that spring from the wanton indulgence of any of the passions, but the cure does not lie in prohibition. It is conceivable that a man might be kept sober if drink were withheld from him, but if this can only be achieved by shutting off the supply nowenjoyed by sober and temperate peopi , we may well ask if the game is worth the candle. Reformers, greatly daring, but honest at any rate, contend that the treatment extended to the drunkard should be the same in principle as that adopted in the case of other people who have given the bridle to their worst propensities. They/ argue that the gaol is aS much the place for the drunkard as for the thief, and there is sense and logic in their argument. But teetotallers will have none of it. Their panacea consists in the removal of “temptation,” which in New Zealand (so the No-License Party have taughtj us), means closing the publichouses, extending the sly grog-trade, and penalising every member of the community who knows how to make a moderate and sensible use of liquid refreshment. It is time that the Teetotaller set himself to reconsider the whole question. The beginning of a new year gives a convenient opportunity. He should begin by asking himself whether prohibition which does not prohibit is worth bothering about, considering what injustice it inflicts upon people who are just as greatly opposed to over-indulgence in liquor as the teetotaller himself can be. The best way to discourage drunkenness is to make it disreputable to be drunk, and that end will never be achieved by seeking to degrade the custom of moderate drinking that has obtained since t’.e beginning of time and will continue in spite of everything.