Candid Comments

White Ribbon, Volume 30, Issue 11, 1 April 1959, Page 5

Candid Comments

iti/en

all the si made recently, and mark you, made by the Chief Welfare m Australian Northern Territory, surely this is one of the worst It ii that liquor canteens should be opened en Government settlements and church missions, and that aborigines should be edui drink And, wh\ d answer would be to gi\o the opportunity to sellers of liquor to make i more money, The • the aborigines must be educated to drink with re strain! And why MUST? The education should receive is to abstain completely from liquor which has already harmed 50 many of them The hackneyed idea ot drinking with restraint has been repeated all ton often in our ow n countt - ir^e. every drinker means to drink with restraint w hen he ■is, hut the • too hard tor many, as drink ites a craving fbr itself \\ i I the proposal has been bitterly opposed !»\ Church and missionary leaders in hatwm, who say t' would neyei tolerate wet cant their missions

Much publicity u to the recent epi in Papakura, when liquor was refused to l>. to I >r Bennett in a hotel lounge, on account i f Ins belonging to the Maori Rue VVe remember .» Maori saying, 'We want to be equal in good things, not in had things like liquor." I>r Bennett would have done better service to his people to follow m the footsteps of his greatly n grandfather, who sought all his life to keep liquor away from his people

\ magazine produced with the aid of the State Literary Pond received some justifiable criticism from various quarters, including the I'ress a critic said that three out of four stories were aboul illicit love and the editor himself admitted that OCX them was among the most violent ever published m X Z. There is enough nasty literature in circulation already, wtihout taxpayer's money being used to produce more. There is a penalty for poisoning the bodies of others, but the poisoner of people's minds mostly gets off s o>t free It would ' hetter thing tor such people to heed Paul's admonition to think of the things that a r e honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report "'lf there he any \irtue and if there he any praise, think on these things "

\ newspaper recently described the navy's daily rum issue at the most ceremonious and important occasion It seems a senseless and dangerous custom It creates a taste for liquor m those who would perhaps, otherwise not yet the craving It irs to have started in the lHth century when British Government employees put down a lot of piracy in the Indies. In payment, lamaica offered the British Government rum, which was later transferred to the Xavy The only redeeming feature about the whole sorry business is that sailors who do not draw the istUC yet an extra 3d per issue on tbeir pay

It is good to hear that coffee pot clubs are opening in many British towns to give lonely young

men and women in the professions or from the unhersities, an opportunity to meei each other The introduction of such clubs is \a'uable as an alternative to liquor bars