CARDINAL MANNING ON TEMPERANCE REFORM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1903, 27 July 1888, Page 3

CARDINAL MANNING ON TEMPERANCE REFORM.

THE UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE. I said in the beginning that it was a great political organisation direoted at the eleotoral body of the kingdom. It has labored now for five or six and twenty years with great skill, and I may say with very great prudence, with effeot to lojal votes, in every enfranchised city, borough, or district in tho kingdom. For a long period of time eleotion after election waa hostile. Sir W. Lawson lost his seat at Carlisle because of the Permissive Bill. The leader was rejected and the host was routed. Nevertheless the United Kingdom Alliance went on. It gradually gained here a member and there a member. Oh, it was ignominiously routed in the eleotion before last, when, with an enormous majoriv a Government was returned — I won't say in what color in politios, for lam no politician i —but it was returned by the influenoe of the great drink traffio. And to a great extent that great drink traffio was fostered and cherished by members of the Government afterwards. lam very sorry for it. I greatly respect the men, but I do not respect their policy. But, after having suffered this defeat, and it was a very signal one, there came another eleotion, when 240 men — I believe I am exact in the figure— pledged themselves to support Sir Wilfred Lawson in the Local Option resolution in the House of Commons, whioh has been agein and again carried. I | say at onoe, that but for the United Kingdom Alliance this never oould have been done. It is fair to set it down to the aocount of the five or six and twenty years or more of constant, persistent, ever advancing energy with which the United Kingdom Alliance has acted. I

have said that this great drink traffio has an enormous organisation all over the country Bnd you know it. I need not dwell on it. You must meet organisation by organisation, as you meet army by army, and there is no organisation in the land but the United Kingdom Alliance that is in any degree commensurate with the organisation of the drink traffio. This ia my first reason for earnestly reoommending all who hear me now, who have not taken part In it hitherto, to take part in it hereafter. I must say in passing, if the United Kingdom Alliance, with its immense political influence, were in any other Bense of the word than that whioh I have used m the beginning a political body, I could not in conscience belong to it, beoause it would be the most revolutionary body in the world. No oaucus or aggregation of caucuses such as we hear of in Amerioa, oould equal the power of the organisation of the United Kingdom Alliance. And if it tilrned off the rail without being smashed, and took to meddling with other politics, there is no saying what might happen. But happily, u_ing the word conservative in the pure sense whioh has no politics in it, I know of no body or organisation so purely and entirely conservative of good, of order, or law, or authority, .of sobriety, of prudence, of justice, throughout the whole of the land as the United Kingdom Alliance.

PBOTECT IHE DWELLINOS OP THE POOH. The rich man who has an estate has a oontrol over every house on that estate. He will not let a house to a publican. If he hears that without his knowledge one of his tenants has applied for a license, he soon Beeß the back of that tenant at a distance. The rich man has absolute lordship over his property. He will not allow a publio house to be put against biß garden gate. If his property be in the good city of Newcastle he will not allow a publio house to be put next door to his home ; no, nor in the same streetand if he be the possessor of the land ftnd o\ the houseß jn that street he will soon dear away the nuisance. How is it with the poor man ? In the street where the families of working men live— it may be a peaceful street, the atmosphere of whioh is pure, where the homes are tranquil and peaceful— some fine day a house is opened by lioense as a publio houße. There live on the right and on the left of that publio house two honest, upright, God-fearing men and their families, and from that day the peace of thejr homes is broken. From that day jnen and women— l will not desoribe them— are going at all hours of the day to that house. Down to a late hour at night noise and revelry are beard through the party wall. What tbe language is like I need not desoribe, What the oonduot at tha door I need not tell. The working man goes out early in the morning, and oomes baok after Bunset. His wife and children havo to pass the threshold, and there are those who crowd the door of

the public-house; hiß young sons tempted to enter it and become drunkards, his young daughters breathe an atrnbsphere wb^ch is poisonous-. ' T need hot go oh with the picture. Your own hearts, your own knowledge, will oolor it more deeply than any words of mine. What can tho poor man do to proteot his home ? Oan he sweep away the public-house ? He has no power over it. The Looal Option, or popular veto, then, is

this— that the mass of the people shall, have by law, what tbe rioh man ba? by property. Nothing can be more constitutional ty'an this. Equality before the la#' is the very foundation of our English Commonwealth, Nothing oan be more just. Who suffer most from drnnkenness ? The workmen and their families, and, abpve al}, the sober. Vho has to pay tbe rates for the paupers, and the insane, and the sick, in the country asylums, and in in tbe distriot infirmary ? Who, then, knows ! best bow many publie-houseß ave needed in the neighborhood, if any aro needed at all ? I know no adequate remedy, ffor 30Q yeara —ever since the time of Edward VI. — magistrates have been giving licenses and have been supposed to oontrol tho granting of licenses— with what result you know. There is no power of police that can correct it. \i ought no{ to bo. Tho evil ought to be permitted to grow in order that the police may be called in to repress it. Prevention is not only better than cure, but prevention is a duty, and cure is a lame, halting attempt to undo an evil whioh we have wilfully permitted. That is Local Option *, that iu the popular veto.

A Brooklyn debating society is discussing the question as to whioh is the madder— the husband who goes home and finds that dinner isn't ready, or the wife who haa dinner ready and whose husband doesn't go home ? It is believed the debate will end in Rdra\fi !