TEMPERANCE MATTERS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3059, 16 April 1881, Page 2

TEMPERANCE MATTERS.

[To the Emtob of the Daily Telegraph.] Sis,— Your Wairoa correspondent, in referring to my .ommunication of the 7th instant, has been pleased to declare himself as an earnest sympathiser with temperance workers, and that his interest at one time led bim to seek to establish an 1.0.G-T. lodge. I only regret that be did not persist in bis labor ot love ? until success crowned his efforts. He must have knovn, as a practical man, tbat no such organization as templary could be carried on without money, and surely a couple of guineas for a charter should not have caused an earnest man to cease in his attempt. I hope he will have the fires of his past zeal rekindled by the new spirit which is moving over the dry bones of the beautifiul Wairoa. My purpose, however, in claiming a few inches of space in your columns is to reply to a remark of your correspondent as to my being " one of those who desire to see the sale of all intoxicants prohibited" " our own" seeing in that dread possibility the shutting up of all places of public accommodation for the traveller. He is not alone in entertaining this absurd notion. There is no necessary connection whatever between grog-selling and beds and breakfasts. The oftrepeated declarations on the part of "mine host," that he could not provide the well spread table and luxurious appointments of his hostelry unless his profits were supplemented by those derived from the sale of intoxicating liquors, is a fallacious idea. Still, if there was any truth whatever in this supposition, the colony would be well rid of the untold evils ever springing; from the drink trade by a failure to afford so many comforts and coaveniences to the travellers journeying up and down the country. But the fact is—if air we hear be true,

and there can he no doubt of it—that the cities and towns in the United States, where no intoxicants are sold, or permitted to be sold, have hotels with which none of our colonial houses can be compared. Mindful of your space, I will say _ no more, although the theme is inviting. your correspondent will enlist himself in the effort now made at the Wairoa,—! am, &c, Wm. Pbicb. April 16, 1881.