THE BASIS OF TEMPERANCE REFORM.

White Ribbon, Volume 30, Issue 355, 18 February 1925, Page 8

THE BASIS OF TEMPERANCE REFORM.

The particular social reform the need of which the Christian Churches seem to recognise most acutely, and which they work for most earnestly, is Temperance Reform. Certainly the Drink Evil is something tremendous in its disastrousness, affecting not me ely the drunkards themselves, but their children, and children not yet born, and the whole community. It mutt be tackled somehow; but it connot be effectively overcome as something by itself. It will have to be tackled in conjunction with other social evils with which it is intertwined.

In one of the late Mr Cadbury’s letters to a son of his (as ouotod in his biography) he said that if he had had to live in such unwholesome and unpleasant surroundings as many of his fellow-men do, he might easily have become a drunkard himself. Not only is it true that many people who might, with their families, be fairly well off, are rendered poor, even to destitution, through wasting their means on what does nothing but harm; it is equally true that about one third of the population of tin British Isles are so poor to start with that they never have enough to arrive at and maintain even full physical efficiency, and that many of them are tempted into the public house by their depressing surroundings and the harsh conditions under which they earn their livelihood. By yielding to this temptation, of course, they only aggravate their poverty and sink more deeply into the mire. Very instructive fo.- all Temperance reformers is the history of the rise and fall of what was probably the greatest Temperance Movement which ever swept a country—that which resulted from the crusade of Father Matthew in Ireland nearly a century ago. Catholics anu Protestants alike, in crow'ds, pledged them selves to total abstinence. The Liquor Traffic suddenly w’ent down through lack of support. But. unhappily, that Temperance reform stood alone. The land-laws of Ireland in those days—before the Oladstonian land-legislation—were the worst in the w’orld. Irish landlords at ihat time had no other functions than to draw revenue from their estates, and moreover they were fre-

quently absentees. The tenants built houses for themselves, and outhouses for their horses, cattle, and pigs, and made all improvements, and then for all the value they had created paid rent to the legal owners of the soil. The population of the country was nearly double what it is to-day; and the land-hunger was keen; competition raised rents higher and higher. All that the sober people saved by their abstinence was swallowed up by rack-rents. They became dependent for food upon what was cheapest—namely, potatoes. Disease attacked their potato crop. Then came the great famine, and pestilence in its wake. With relief came liquor to revive the famine stricken. Pledges were broken. Misery made people drink. And so the splendid work of Father Matthew was undone.

Two things in this connection should he equally kept in mind. On the other hand, alcoholic intemperance, if persisted in, might easily thwart any amount of social reform; the public house intiuence might easily stupefy a considerable proportion of the electorate into acquiescence in fundamental 3ocial injustices, and even if these w r ere partially or wholly removed, might prevent the people from utilising their increased opportunities of wellbeing. On the other hand, the persistence of radical flaws in social and industrial organisation might easily make Temperance reform, if it stood alone, almost null and void. Without slackening their seal for social reform, the Churches must become better Informed about the evil implications of the present social order (or disorder! in which we are all entangled, and must rise to equal on behalf of social and economic reconstruction on the basis of the law’ of Christ, the Golden Rule. John the Baptist—he who prepared the way for our Lord Jesus in describing not so much his own ministry as that of Him who w’as about to appear, said: “The axe is laid to the root of the trees.” The aim of John’s teaching was to lay the axe to the root of barren trees, of trees bearing poisonous fruit in the human race —to uproot or else sublimate whatever in men’s minds and hearts was marring humanity’s development—to clear the way for the reign of Wisdom and Love which

operates from within outward, for universal right, mutually-helpful relations and interactions, for peace and harmony, for life and joy

Have all the evils that afflict humanity a common root- is there a parent evil from which all other evils proceed? If so, what is that root or parent evil? If we succeed in getting a clear answer to this question we shall see where exactly the axe is to be laid, w r hat would be the really effective treatment for all sin and pain and sorrow’. With regard to any particular evil outwardly manifest in experience, it may he easy to discover what is its immediate “cause.” Consider for instance, alcoholic intemperance, which is terribly fruitful of trouble for multitudes of people and for their families and of weakness and loss for whole nations. Of this evil it may be truly said, in a sense, that the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors is the cause. If the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks could be really ended, there w’ould be no drunkenness, and there would probably result from that reform a situation more favourable for many other reforms. But the question arises: “Why is so dangerous an article of commerce produced?” . . . Why do people invest capital and enterprise in the sale and manufacsture of something through which such havoc is being wrought among their fellow-men? They do this for the sake of “profit” to themselves. They see that there is “money in it” for them, although it may bring damage and death to many of their fellow-men. The love of money is the root of all sorts of evils; and itself has its root in the delusion that some persons can really gain through others’ loss —the delusion of separate and contending interests . . .Instead of serving each other, instead of enriching each others lives out of the abundance of natural resources and opportunities at hand, instead of applying their strength and ingenuity to the well-being of all, they set themselves to struggle with one another for mastery, for the control of what others need, so as to draw tribute from them . . . This is Lie parent delusion--that we are separate from God and from one another, that we have some interest other than the universal good. Oniy by the dawning of the Truth of our Being -the know-

ledge of our real nature and our real relations—are we set free. There is no hope for human society except through a change of mind, a change of heart, in widening circles of the race, and a corresponding change of individual and collective action. The emergence in us of pure goodwill, of a loving of one’s neighbour as oneself, would be the arrival of the King, the establishing of the Kingdom of Heaven. Love is God unfolding His own nature in us and through us. —From “Brotherhood.”