The White Ribbon: FOR GOD AND HOME AND HUMANITY Wednesday, November 15, 1899. A Grave Responsibility.

White Ribbon, Volume 5, Issue 53, 1 November 1899, Page 7

The White Ribbon: FOR GOD AND HOME AND HUMANITY Wednesday, November 15, 1899. A Grave Responsibility.

In all probability, before the next issue of this paper, the men and women of New Zealand will have voted on one of the greatest moral, social, and hygienic questions of the day. It is a most hopeful symptom of a healthy public opinion to find that no subject looms sc largely before the electors of the colony as the drink question. It may be helpful to briefly sum up some of the phases of this important subject. It should be remembered that the law of the colony has always forbidden the free sale of intoxicants because of the many evils arising therefrom. Among these evils are idleness, crimes of violence, indecency, poverty, sickness, insanity, and death. But because it was supposed that intoxicants were a necessity of life, licenses to sell them for one year were granted to a limited number of persons who were said to he of good repute. If these persons failed to carry out the conditions of these licenses, then the licenses were to be cancelled. Further, if it seemed to those appointed to grant licenses that the sale of intoxicants in certain places was an evil or unnecessary, then they were to cease to issue such licenses. It will be seen that a great responsibility rested upon those who had the power to grant or refuse licenses to sell intoxicants. This responsibility has been taken from the Magistrates and Committees who formerly bore it, and has been placed upon the people themselves. Every man and every woman who votes for the giving of lice uses, will be directly responsible for the evils that flow from the sale of intoxicants under those licenses. Intoxicants are not a necessity. Lord Wolseley and Lord Roberts have

testified to their harmfulness in hot climates. Captain Nares and other Arctic explorers bear witness to their evil effects in cold climates. Almost all eminent physicians agree that they are not necessary in temperate climates, and most of them declare that the habitual use of intoxicants is positively injurious to health. This latter statement is amply born out by the experience of ' Life Insurance Companies. These not only refuse to insure drunkards, but charge moderate drinkers of alcohol higher premiums than they do total abstainers. It will be seen, therefore, that to grant licenses for the purpose of affording facilities for the habitual use of Intoxicating drinks is wrong from a hygienic point of view. The moral aspects of the question are equally clear. Every reader of our newspapers may continually see in the reports of our local and Supreme Courts testimony to the demoralising effect of the consumption of intoxicants. Judges and magistrates, prison chaplains, clergymen and superintendents of asylums bear unanimous witness to the fact that by the use of alcohol the

moral sense is lowered. They estimate that from fifty to eighty per cent, of inmates of our piisons have become criminals through the debasing influence of drink.

With the social effects of the habitual use of intoxicants we are all familiar. Every one knows of more than one neglected home where the ‘evidences of the poverty induced by frequent visits to the licensed bar are painfully apparent. Seeing, then, that hygienically, morally, and socially the effects of the sale and consumption of alcohol are so evil, can any sane, reasonable, right-minded person, with a sense of the responsibility involved, vote for the continuance of these licenses ? Let us everyone impress upon our friends and neighbours these phases of

the drink question, and urge them not to take the responsibility of these evils upon themselves, hut rather to minimise them by striking out the top line on the voting paper. <♦