The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3751, 2 March 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1875.

The Good Templars must be much obliged to our morning contemporary, the * Daily Times,’ for the silly articles that so constantly appear in its columns in opposition to their doctrines. We do not think it at all necessary to become their defendant. The shilly-shally twaddle hurled against them by the journal which has constituted itself the champion of intemperance, is the best recommendation of their cause; for if no better arguments can be adduced against them than appear in the ‘ Daily Times,’ were reason the arbiter and men bound to decide between them and the Goliath who assails them, he must of necessity fall. Though disagreeing with every doctrine that interferes with men’s liberty, because we condemn the principle of “doing evil that good may come,” there is much in the object sought to be accomplished by Good Templarism that should command the respect and co-opera-tion of all men who wish well to society. We have been charged by some with supineness and cowardice, because we have not identified ourselves with one side or the. other on this question. We have been told that a public journal should lead public opinion, and therefore that we should not remain silent on the subject; and these taunts were not by Good Templars, but by its opponents. Perhaps there may be truth in the accusation ; we have not thus far thought it necessary to comment upon it, any more than upon Home and Foreign missionary efforts and •ther movements having for their object the reformation of human character. We include all these movements in one class, and, as in religious matters there can be no 'success without enthusiasm, so we conclude it to be equally necessary to moral reforms. Good Templarism has brought its doctrines very prominently before the world ; it has organised a system and become a strong moral power • it has its missionaries and its creedT The duty of the secular Press, therefore, in regard to it is pretty much that which it owes to religious movements generally, namely—to stand aloof from either party, and to watch carefully that no interference takes place with true social liberty. Our contemporary bases his shallow sophisms upon the “ impossibility of making men moral by Act of Parliamentapparently not perceiving that on similar grounds it could be maintained that there should be no legislative enactments against theft or murder. There is much better ground for opposition to “prohibitory legislation,” as it is termed, on the liquor traffic. That really becomes a question as to how far a Government is justified in interfering with private judgment and private conduct. For our own parts, notwithstanding all that has been urged to the contrary we think to drink or not to drink is a matter for the individual, not the Government, to decide. But although the ‘Daily Times’ sneers at the Good Templars for drawing a distinction between “prohibitory and permissive legislation,” to those capable of understanding the meaning of words, the difference is apparent and wide. The principle of permissive legislation has long been assumed and granted to the Legislature. What is a license for but to give permission to a publican to sell alcoholic drinks on certain conditions ? For that permission be agrees to provide a bouse with certain conveniences, to vend his goods at a certain place called a bar, to confine his trade within certain hours, to serve no man already intoxicated, and to allow access to the police at all times to see that the prescribed conditions are carried out. Thus far the Good Templars in this Colony have mainly confined their efforts, not so much to the removal or extension of these restrictions, as to giving to the inhabitants’of a distnet the power ef saying a public-house shall be established here or there, instead of leaving it to a bench of Justices to decide. The change pioposed is in the parties who are to grant permission—not in the character of the permission itself; and every candid observer will admit that not only was there great room for change in that respect, but that in the interests of the licensed victuallers, as well as of the public, greater changes are needed. The Good Templars propose to effect these by influencing public opinion, and surely, taking into consideration that their purpose is to free mankind from the most sonbenslaving vice that has ever cursed the race, the duty of the public Press is not to crush, but to endeavor to guide the movement, lest its good effects should be marred by substituting for the present defective arrangements legislative fetters galling to society, and against which it would rebel. Time was, and that not fifty years ago, when a drunkard was looked upon as an outcast. Driven to kindred fallen ones for society he was shunned by all who considered themselves respectable, and he usually sank into hopeless poverty and died after dragging down those dependent upon him into abject misery. True to the letter was it that Acts of Parliament were powerless to reclaim. England’s statute-book proves this; but total abstainers, when associated, held out their hands to thousands who were sinking into the proscribed caste: they provided for them a change of thought, of companions, of associations, and by those means have done effectually what law could never have accomplished. This is the secret of the success of Good Templarism, and this is its claim to the respect of all good men. United on this single object, every member may differ from every other as to the efficacy of legislative interference, in religious views, or m politics. The ‘Daily Times’ condemns them as weak-minded. Be it so—if weakmmdedness leads to self-sacrifice for the good of mankind; for nothing is more certain than that tens of thousands of the beat of men have joined the movement, nob because they the need of mU-denial, but in order that

their example and cooperation might benefit others. There is much more to admire in weak-mindedness so self-sacrificing, than in that {wide of intellect which in the ‘ Daily Times’ leaders assumes to soar above those humble efforts, and which practically adopts the maxim that Milton puts into the mouth of Satan, “Evil be thou my good,”