“A SANE UTTERANCE.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1138, 1 February 1912, Page 22

“A SANE UTTERANCE.”

ENGLISH CLERGYMAN’S VIEWS ON TEMPERANCE. “PUBLIC HOUSE A MAN’S CLUB.” The Rev. Forbes Phillips, Vicar of Gorleston, recently saici: “Every year something like a million is spent in circulating incorrect statements and serious men have lost faith in such a twisting, statistics. Can we wonder that propaganda? I never could understand why a publican should be a more suspicious character than a draper. A publican must not tempt a customer to buy; a draper can and does. A publichouse is a man’s club. In my parish when men are needed for the life-boat for work which means enthusiasm and seamanship against Neptune in his fury, I have often seen them turn out of the public-house to man the lifeboat. I have seen again and again a publican take charge of the life-boat, and England ring next day with the praise of his splendid audacity. I have never seen any teetotal gather-

ing depleted for work of this kind, though I have heard some of those cranks abuse a lifeboatman because he has had a drink of beer.” Continuing, he argues on logical grounds as follows: “Sometimes poor shipwrecked sailors are brought ashore half dead with hunger and cold, and it is invariably the publican who offers them shelter, food, and drink. My real temperance workers are the publicans. A good teetotal lecturer speaks to an assemblage of pledged teetotalers and a few children. What good does that do? We want a temperance society which all the will join, and the problem is solved once and for all time.”