EMINENT AUTHORITIES

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1287, 16 November 1911, Page 8

EMINENT AUTHORITIES

PRESIDENT LINCOLN ON PROHIBITION. President Lincoln, tho man who abolished slavery, strenuously opposed prohibition. He said-.—"Prohibition will work groat injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of- intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and in making crimes out of things that are not crime. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles on which our governments are founded. I have always been found labouring to protect the weaker classes from tho stronger, and I never can givo my consent to such a law as you proposo to enact. Until my tongiio shall bo silenced in death, I will continue to fight fox tho rights of men."

JEROME K. JEROME ON WATER. In view of the dreadful havoc wrought by water, Jerome li. Jerome's opinion on this "dreadful fluid" ought to be widely read:—Water, he says, is a terrible fluid: it drowns people. It is composed of two gases, on neither of which could life be sustained. Every year thousands upon thousands of people are killed by this dreadful fluid, leaving sorrowing widows and orphans behind them, and yet our wicked Parliament.rofusos to prohibit it. Water sometimes gets . into houses anil ruins the walls and ceilings and spoils the carpets.' Many horrible diseases are brought about by this water, such as rheumatism and pleurisy. Water is tho homo of disease germs. Typhoid fever and cholera are both brought by drinking water. Water rises in the form of floods, and then whole towns are swept away and hundreds of people meet their death. Often the poor fanner's crops aro completely ruined by this water.

"NO-LICENSE A GOOD THING." Mr. A. J. Stephens, tho noted journalist, writing in the "Sydney Morning Herald" on No-License in New Zealand, said:—"The sad case oflnvoreargill must bo taken cautiously. Invoreargill is a solid town of 12,000, moro or less,. Scottish people, right down at tho bottom of New Zealand. Festive strangers dub it dull, but they do not understand. It is only different. Closo by is New Zeasouthernmost port of Tho Bluff, whore the railway system ends. Said a prominent railway official last year, 'I believo in No-License. It is a good thing Down at the Bluff we had an immense shed, and no goods to fill itj it was really in tho way, this immense, empty shed, and we thought of pulling it down. But they got No-Licenso at Invoreargill Now our big shed is stacked with cases of beer and cases of whisky—liquor for Invercargill. Instead of an eyesore, we havo an asset. „, This no-licenso is a good thing."

A CLERICAL OPINION. The Rev. Edward Walker, himself a NoLicense advocate, llio compiler of tho Drink Bill in New Zealand, says:—"The di'ink figures reveal a condition of things to afford laughter for those who can bo jubilant over tho increase of human dogradation and wreckage. In spito of the restraint exercised- by a widespread temperance educational propaganda, and tho increasing number who wka a keen interest in national temperance reform and personal total abstinence, tho figures show an increased consumption, not merely in proportion to increase of population, but per head of population also, to an ominous extent." Why should prohibitionists seek to use tho law when the uaturiu man's inclination and desires are to <u-fy it Kith regard to liquor? Let us retain licensing, and with it freedom, by striking out the bottom lines on all papers at tho ballot box.*