Mgr. Grosch on Prohibition

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 28, 19 July 1923, Page 45

Mgr. Grosch on Prohibition

A largely-attended meeting, organised by • the AntiProhibition League, was held recently in the Mansion House, London, to protest against the policy of local option (says the London Catholic Times). A,speech read for the Right Rev. Mgr. Henry Grosch, R.D. (Rector of St. John's, Islington), supported the following resolution: "This meeting declares its antagonism to every form of intemperance, and pledges itslf to support all honest endeavors to educate our people, in the ascertained facts concerning the use and misuse of their traditional beverages." ! Mgr. Grosch, in his closely-reasoned statement, remarked that intemperance took on a multitude of forms Jhe term "intemperance" had quite wrongly come to be associated with one kind of excess only. Every form of intemperance, including intemperate methods of controversy, intemperate speech, etc., was abhorrent. It was not new to the meeting that a movement had lately b-en set on- loot with the avowed object of accomplishing the task of educating the people in the matter of true temperance. In so far as this. was a temperate and a truthful movement 1 as far as that, but-no'further, he. wished it bod-speed, ' as any man who desired true'. progress must (Applause.) Knowledge was power, and the more they could know of the established and demonstrable facts concerning their daily lives, the stronger and better they would be, unless they wilfully rejected their, evidence. ~' Unworthy Methods. Speaking as one who had spent 'more than; thirty years as a working priest among the people of London, continned Mgr. Grosch, he had witnessed the disastrous effects of excess m intoxicating drinks among various .sections of the community. He was a convinced and determined temperance worker, and it was precisely because of 'that that he felt deeply concerned lest a : lofty cause should be spoiled by unworthy methods. In regard to such methods, Mgr Grosch recalled a recent lecture given to children at Bexhill-on-Sea, where a scientific experiment was made in the sacred name of temperance.' There portions of food were reported to have been placed in .a test tube ''to , show the awful effects on the human stomach of even moderate drinking. The liquor used for the experiment was not . beer not wine, not whisky, but crude alcohol, such as the law expressly forbade to be sold as a potable spirit. If that were true, said Mgr. Grosch, then those who employed such methods were trying to promote temperance by in-' temperance-nay by something far worse, by. fraud, by deception by falsehood, by we%ons which the Church could not bless, under-a banner which should not be broidered falsely with the name of religion. (Applause.) Let the facts he said, be taught with all speed, with all openness and . clearness, but let the fiction, the fancies, and the falsehoods be rejected, lock, stock, and barrel. (Applause.) ■ / ~ y p Misrepresentation by Statistics ' ' ' Turning from the medical to the statistical'aspect of' he question Mgr.. Grosch 'pointed Out that, again they found habitual, wilful exaggeration-more Sitemperance of statement. ■ People .were tojd that; £400,000,000 was spent E* f» t d r ink - They «honld at the same time be told that half of that sum was paid to the Government and utilised by them, for education, old-age pensions, and other beneficent objects.] That sum, he said, was not lost ; to. the, country. Half of- it went to revenue. (Applause.) : . I Prohibition be the remedy for" intemperance-and with his whole soul and mind he said it was not-let those who were working for it. at least deal openly and fairly, with the British public./ (Applause.).; They in that meeting differed : from the avowed Prohibitionist; they fought him, but respected him. .But if it were true that deception was . in i this new campaign, they deplored it and denounced it. (Applause.) -:;;".'; >£;f-<C. : '■•$.■"■; - : W i: ■'