A STATESMAN’S PRONOUNCEMENT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 956, 2 July 1908, Page 22

A STATESMAN’S PRONOUNCEMENT.

Cardinal Gibbons, the head of the Catholic Church in the United States, when interviewed at Baltimore recently, expressed himself as opposed i to prohibition and local option in large cities. The Cardinal expressed himself as follows: — Local option should under no circumstances apply to this city. Liquor would be sold here quite as abundantly under prohibition laws as under well-regulated license. The consequence will be that liquor will be dispensed contrary to law, instead of being sold in accordance with law. Then, too, the city will be deprived of a large revenue which is so much needed for the government of this community. When a law is flagrantly and habitually violated, it brings legislation .into contempt. It creates a spirit of 1 deception and hypocrisy, and compels men to do insidiously and by stealth what they would otherwise do.open■ly and above board. , • You cannot legislate men into the performance of good and righteous

deeds. If we are to improve the morality of our city and make our Citizens more temperate, let the virtue. of temperance be proclaimed in the churches; above all, let it be enforced in the family, that parents both by word and example, may inculate their children with temporal and spiritual blessings which spring from a life of temperance and sobriety