The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER, 4, 1925. THE DANGER OF PROHIBITION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 42, 4 November 1925, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER, 4, 1925. THE DANGER OF PROHIBITION

OUR- beloved Metropolitan lias, in an eloquent and masterly Pastoral, issued to Catholics a solemn warning against’ Prohibition, and we cannot doubt that his wise words will, have weighty influence on the result of the polling to-day. Not only is Prohibition ethically unsound ami an unwarranted aggression on the freedom of the people, but, in a country in which bigots have more than once proved their power, it is a menace to our religion. The very centre of our Catholic life is the Eucharist ; the Eucharist, by divine institution, depends on the materials of bread and wine, and it is intolerable to think that it might become possible that free access; to these materials could be denied ns by venal politicians swayed by noisy No-Popery bigot’s. * * t Whatever about the question of freedom in the abstract, when we recall that our Metropolitan expresses the matured opinion of the Council of the Archbishops of Australia, over which the Apostolic Delegate presided, we consider that the wisest and safest course is to be guided by their advice, which is set forth plainly in the following document, emanating from the highest ecclesiastical authority we have in these southern territories: PRONOUNCEMENT OE AUSTRALASIAN ARCHBISHOPS. October, 1918. We deem it our duty to co-operate with every wisely directed effort to stem the evil of drink in Australasia, and to promote temperance among our people. We have no sympathy with those who oppose well-con-sidered, restrictive legislative, or the strict and impartial administration of the laws which regulate the sale of drink. But, need-

less to say wo have just as little sympathy with those and they are very active at present —who do not distinguish between the use and abuse of alcholic drink; who seem to regard drink as something essentially evil who, in spite of the comparative sobriety of the people of Australasia, convey to the world by their reckless statements that Australia and New Zealand are drink-sodden lands, and that their people, and especially the soldiers who have risked their lives, are ■dishonored and degraded by intemperance. No lasting improvement can be based upon false principles and no good-cause can he served by false charges and intemperate language. We frankly admit that drink has done and is doing ranch evil in Australasia. We are so much alive to the necessity of legal control of the drink traffic that we would regard with sympathy any sane proposal to buy out existing liquor interests, to take the drink out of private hands, and to vest it in some public authority. But we view with misgiving and alarm the crude proposals of those Prohibitionists who, under cover of war conditions demand drastic legislation which would be an unwarrantable infringement on the reasonable liberty of the mass of the people; which would most probably be inefficacious for the purpose in view, and which in the end might produce more evil than it would remove. ►I- 1 His Excellency thk Afostolic Delegate. -I-* Michael. Archbishop of Sydney. *s* Eraxcis, Archbishop of Wellington. * Daniel, Archbishop of Melbourne. *J» James. Archbishop of Brisbane. *s* Patrick, Archbishop of Hobart. * Patrick, Archbishop of Perth. *s* Robert, Archbishop of Adelaide. • • •

That document was issued in October, 1918. Last year, when we were celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Archbishop Redwood, Archbishop Clime, in the course of his eloquent panegyric, paid a magnificent tribute to the wise and fearless guidance which our Metropolitan gave the Catholic people, and the Archbishop of Sydney, as spokesman of the Australian Hierarchy, referred specifically to the great work his Grace had done in fighting Prohibition. We mention these incidents in order to show with what authority lie speaks now when once again he raises his voice to warn our people against what might easily be a real danger to the Church.