A NO-LICENSE LECTURE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 22 May 1913, Page 25

A NO-LICENSE LECTURE.

(By

PAT O’MAORI,

in Sydney

"Fairplay.”)

Ladies and gentlemen, I appear before you to-night in the cause of—ah —temperance. It is my privilege to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, of the great strides made by no-license in Kamtchatka. In that favoured land, from which I have just arrived, the curse of drink has been —ahem —almost eliminated. From the returns of the Kamtchatkan Government, ladies and gentlemen,, and from my own experience as a temperance organizer and worker, I am able to declare to you with conviction that since the greater part of the State, by a local option vote, closed its hotel bars the people have become sober, industrious, and ready to attend church on every possible occasion. (Loud applause). It is true, ladies and gentlemen, that many false statements have been circulated by our opponents, statements based upon the statistics and government returns and placed before the people badly and without explanation. I ask you to discount those statements, ladies and gentlemen, and casting aside the mere Government facts and figures, to accept the statement of one who has lived and worked in Kamtchatka and who speaks from his own personal knowledge and experience. I am bold to say, ladies and gentlemen, that, despite figures to the contrary, crime, poverty, and insanity have increased very little if at all since the various electorates began to carry no-license. (Loud cheers). Ladies and gentlemen, I go further. Standing here on this platform as an earnest advocate of the

great reform which so many of us have at heart, I assert that the consumption of liquor per head of population has not trebled, as our opponents attempt to prove, but in cold fact has very little more than doubled in the last 20 years! (Loud and prolonged applause, during which an excited male enthusiast went into hysterics and was removed kicking). AN ILLUSTRATION. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you a little story. In one of our country towns there lived a young man who had never come under the influence of any temperance society. He had been well brought up by a careful mother, who was the proprietress of a small laundry in a select suburb. Her son was in the habit of carrying home the washing faithfully every Saturday, and in the space of five years there had never been a collar or a handkerchief missing or delivered to the wrong customer. He was a young man of great promise, and Christian ladies of the district frequently spoke about him and remarked that there was a bright future before him as a window-cleaner or car-pet-beater if he would but keep away from the drink. For five years, ladies and gentlemen, he had never known the taste of liquor, and all went well. At the earnest solicitation of a friend he went into a. hotel bar and had a pint of beer. To the drunken and abandoned wretches who, after their day’s work, have often two or even three pints of beer this may seem a small matter, but that young man knew that he had fallen, knew that his reputation was gone, and knew, moreover, that he had lost a pair of socks. (Here a young woman in the front seats sobbed violently). Ladies and gentlemen, that young man went home to his

mother, and told her all, told her of his fall, told her of the beer, told her of the missing socks. The poor woman listened and trembled, for she remembered how on one occasion her late husband had taken a glass of rum with a friendly bricklayer, and, staggering home in a state of violent excitement, had thrown the domestic cat at her across the width of the washhouse. To know that her son also had taken to drink, and had lost beyond hope of recovery a pair of white cotton socks, was too much for the gentle soul. She took to her bed, and within a fortnight passed sadly away. (Loud tears). Her son was so grief-stricken and so filled with remorse that he went off the very day. of the funeral and recorded a vote for no-license. (Cheers, mixed with sympathetic sobs). Ladies and gentlemen, no-license was carried in that district, and before the ( last returns . were in that young man I had found the missing socks! (Fran- ( tic and prolonged cheering). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the socks were found, but who could bring back the tender soul who had washed them? ( (Sobs). Alas, the evil that men do lives after them. That mother was gone where there were neither hand- . kerchiefs nor collars to wash! (Many soulful sniffs). J THE WASHERLADY’S PICTURE. | But do you think that young man gave up in despair? No, a thousand times no. Every morning he rose . early, and as he put on his waistcoat asked himself what he could do that was worthy of his mother. At last he ■ hit on a plan. He had a photograph

of the face he had loved so well, now, alas, sleeping beneath the clay. He had that photograph engraved. He used all his spare cash to have copies of it printed, and distributed thousands of the print, throughout the State. Ladies and gentlemen, wherever that picture is seen a vote is secured for no-license. The bright soulful eyes look from the card into those of the elector, and in their mild beam he sees no-license plainly written. By the aid of that picture the battle is being won, and Kamtchatka is being weaned from the bottle and taught to abhor liquor. What has been done in that distant State can be done here. The picture show, the boxing contest, surf bathing, League football, and every other crime springing from the use of alcohol can be crushed by the sweet influence of a mother’s portrait on the hearts of the most hardened electors. Oh, you young men, some of whom have yielded to temptation, and drunk the juice of the Forbidden Fruit! Oh, you mothers, for whom my heart bleeds! The time has come to be up and doing. . Work day and night that you may be able to send such a picture on its mission of light to the most remote corner of New South Wales. This is a great fight, and our opponents are spending £17,000,000 daily to bribe the electors with beer. But stronger than all their millions is that photograph of” a noble woman who* gave her life for the cause of Nolicense. May New South Wales be as Kamtchatka where the great liquor interest might, with an addition of some hundreds of thousand votes, be easily overthrown. Ladies and. gentlemen, we lack but three things which are necessary to victory—facts, figures, and votes. When we find these our cause will be triumphant. (Tremendous cheering).