Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 17 December 1914, Page 34

Notes

The Prohibition Vote The returns of the voting on the licensing polls are not absolutely final,.but they are very nearly so; and the one or two returns to come cannot alter the general result. The figures seem to indicate a rather remarkable revulsion of feeling against .Prohibition throughout the country. As cur readers are aware, in order to carry Prohibition there must be a three-fifths majority of votes in favor of that issue. At each preceding election there has been a very marked and steady advance in the Prohibition vote’. At the last election (1911) the Prohibitionists secured more than 55 per cent! of the votes cast, and the party appeared to be well within sight of their goal This year the vote has gone back to such an .extent that there is an actual majority against them. The figures for 1911 were: For National

Prohibition, 259,943; Against National Prohibition, 205,661. This year the figures are, in round numbers: For National Prohibition, 240,000; against National Prohibition, 245,000. The hostile vote is not confined to the towns or to one patch of country, but is fairly general throughout the Dominion. The position as regards local No License remains unchanged. No new district has gone. f dry,’ and none of the No License districts have carried Restoration.

The Song of the Maxim Gun

The war poet is abroad in the land, and the amount of war verse already published is sufficient to fill - many volumes. All will agree with the closing sentiment, at least, in these lines by Marcus Tydeman in the Westminster Gazette :

‘ I am the heir of the Mitrailleuse, Fashioned in hell for the devils to use. As the reaping machine cuts the golden ears So I garner my harvest of blood and tears. — R-r-r-r-r-rpp, R-r-r-r-r-rpp,

‘See in the trenches the rotting heaps, (Already the worm to the banquet creeps). A human soul was in each of those Till my leaden vomit cut down the rows. — R-r-r-r-r-rpp, R-r-r-r-r-rpp.

‘ Surely no longer the stricken earth Will bear with the Hell Hounds who gave me birth. Haste ! If you’d hear my crackling blast, For this song which I sing is my loudest and last. —- R-r-r-r-r-rpp, R-r-r-r-r-rpp.’

As Canon Garland Sees It

Preaching at St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, on the Sunday preceding the election, and taking for his text the words, ‘ Seek ye .first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ Canon Garland, according to press reports, spoke in part as follows : ‘He contended that the principles of justice were travestied by the course taken by the Education Committee of the House of Representatives. The churches who took part in the agitation represented 75 per cent, of the people. They did not claim that every member of those churches was wholly with them, but the churches which represented 75 per cent, of the people made a modest request. They didn’t ask for the Bible in schools, they did not ask for a particular system of religious instruction, they only asked Parliament to find out from the people by means of a ballot what the people had to say in regard to an agreement which those churches had arrived at. Two priests of the Church of England and a handful of Presbyterian ministers objected. A handful of Methodist ministers did the same thing, and Parliament had said to the world, “We won’t listen to the voices of any of these Christian churches, but we will pay every attention to two dissentient priests, to a handful of ministers from one of these churches, but we will treat with contempt the voices of these churches themselves. “There’s one church they don’t treat with, contempt, and it is not 75 per cent, of the people the Roman Church. That Church . said very, clearly, ‘We don’t believe in a referendum,’ and Parliament takes a course which shows that it is in agreement with the view of the Roman Church.” It was time, then, for Christian ministers to speak out when these rights of a majority had been crushed under the noisy encroachment of the few. What, he asked in conclusion, would be their verdict on Thursday next. Were they going to think of Mr. Massey or Sir Joseph Ward, or were they going to think of God—and he adjured the congregation that when in • the? ballot box they should think of God, to Whom they would one day have to answer for their action.’ Evidently the electors had their own opinion as to which party had God on its side, for. they have returned an overwhelming majority of members opposed to the unjust proposals of the League.