TEMPERANCE AGITATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1317, 4 November 1885, Page 2

TEMPERANCE AGITATION.

, To the Editor. Sir, —I thank you for your courtesy in 1 permitting my letter of the 30th ultimo I to appear, and I observe that you state in your reply that your only reference to Mr i Burneit was in the two sentences in which 1 he ia charged with “ declamatory danun--1 oiations.” Your article consisted of 2L i sentences, of which the first 16 seem fav table to the temperance movement, ■ and the last five are a “ protest against I the intemperate language employed by advocates in denouncing moderate 1 drinkers.” The next two sentences, you admit, do refer to Mr Burnett, and if you , do not charge him in the previous sensenoe with intemperate language in denouncing moderate drinkers, allow me to ask, to whom was the reference made? In t the closing sentence, the last of the five, you call for “ moderate language,” a "reliance more on reason,” etc. The application of these five sentences to the one individual cannot ba doubted, ft by innuendo at least, if not by direct statement ; and suppose such a matter were argued in law would not those five sentences have to be construed together? Now, Sir, what oniniou would parties in the districts ahead be likely to form of Mr Burnett, from reading or hearing of the description given of the man and his mission in these five sentences ? Are they not calculated to create a prejudice against him, and to weaken his influence ? Yon now give him credit for " zeal,” and believe him to be actuated by the purest motives,” and he has your respect and esteem The dark picture presented to your readers in your first article, was not

relieved by these brighter colore. But while, you leave out the charge of “ intemperate language,” you still hold to the “declamatory denunciations.” Not one sample of either is forthcoming, but the plea is put forward that the lectures were wanting in logic and oratory. Is there, then, no other resource left to a social reformer but denunciation 1 We have, given us by the greatest social reformer of all, the parable of the Prodigal Son. ¥ou may say there is no logic there, no oratorical merit there. Yet It has a charm for the hearts of men : there is a power and pathos in it that has touched millions, and influenced them for good. And what are Mr Barnett’s lectures but narratives of prodigal sons, who were constrained by the influences brought to bear on them to leave the wretched entanglements of drinking and gambling fur a better, purer, happier life ? Well, you affirm without a shred of proof, that they were “ nothing more than declamatory denunciations,” and I deny, and I appeal to alt in Ashburton County who he.rd these lectures, numbering well-nigh 2,000 persons, and I can appeal to 10,000 men, if need be, and they will say that what they heard were either sketches of such reformers as Father Matthew, John B. Gough, and Dr Guthrie, or narratives of the lives of those in Australia, Tasmania, or New Zealand who had been known to himself, and whom he was instrumental in saving. Considering the support accorded to Mr Burnett by the leading Melbourne journals and the'press o( the ooloqim federally, it if ««•

surprising that such reflections should have been oast upon Mr Barnett here. I must for the present defer the consideration of the usefulness of the moderate drinker to a community as compared with that of the abstainer. I am, etc, Alexander Blake. Tinwald, November 3