MR FOX IN ENGLAND.

Evening Star, Issue 4118, 9 May 1876, Page 4

MR FOX IN ENGLAND.

The following letter, which has been handed to us for publication, will interest many of our readers, especially those who sympathise with the temperance cause : Kb- 11 The more I see of the matter the more I am satisfied that a national reform will never be effected till the public-houses are all closed. The traffic is too strong for moral suasion alone, and though the latter succeeds in rescuing many, it leaves the great majority ready to become victims of the publichouses and drinking habits of the day. I think the Permissive Bill is making good ■ progress outside Parliament and affecting the minds of electors here. You will see the Permissive -Bill candidates for Barns 3y and Manchester have been returned by large majorities. The latter is looked upon as a great triumph, because the political color was the other way,“ and the deceased member ■ —a Conservative —had a large majority. The issue in both cases was staked on the Permissive Bill: the losing candidates stood as ■ publicans’ candidates. There will be six or eight liquor Bills in Parliament this session, three of which may pass—viz., Irish Sunday Closing (which will be a tremendous blow to the English publicans, who oppose it tooth and ; fnail), Cameron’s Scotch Bill (which ; takes away the appeal from municipal to 'County J.P.’s), and possibly SirH. Johnson’s , (which prohibits any new licenses till the existing number is reduced to one in 500 inhabitants it! each district —a biting off the

dog’s tail by inches). The publicans, of course, oppose all and every attempt to interfere with their traffic; but their political influence is' fast waning, .and .eyealheir old and stauhch ally, the Church of England, is deserting them. There are over 2,000 T A. Church of England clergymen, and the ''Church of England Temperance Society is doing good •service through its total abstinence branch. ' The non-conformists and Catholics* also are coming on fast, and the prospects of the abstainers generally, and the Permissive Bill in particular, were never so food.' I have been doing my little best to elpthe cause by taking the platform for the 17. K. Alliance all over the kingdom ever since the end of September. I have addressed about seventy meetings, and shall probably.make up the hundred before Easter, We have had generally very full meetings of the right class—intelligent working men with , votes in their pockets, and they are just learning the nature of the issue proposed for their eonsideratioa. 1516 weather has been something unprecedented. I don’t think the sun la shown twelve times the last twelve weeks. Half of England has been under water. In many districts no ploughing has beep done and no wheat got in. liailways have beten tom np by floods, &c., &c. The' oldest inhabitant does not remember its like. There haVb btebn lately four or five weeks ol very severe weather, with snow and frost. Now it is raining again and blowing, J flild it extremely trying, and would not Undergo stich another season for a good deal. TWre is nb. pleasure in life with such n I climate : it is depressing in the last degree. I shall probably be a good deal on the war- ■

path between this and May, after which the platform season will be over, and I shall take the remainder of my time to myself, a good deal probably in London, where I have been very little since I came Home, We propose returning to the Colony about-September, so as to arrive in early summer. I have read the whole of the last session’s * Hansard ’ through. They seem to have i had lively times of it. I gather from the j papers that a good many members are likely ' to have leave to retire into private life at the general election. I hope the impression of the abstainers will be perceptible in the new House. We shall have to remodel our present Act before it will be a practical measure, but I think I'see the lines on which we can, run for its improvement. All will ultimately depend on the strength of outside opinion, and that I am glad to see appears to be growing. I suppose you have read Euper’s letters from the United States in the ‘.U.K. Alliance.* As regards’the Maine law he quite cpnfirms, my - statements,, and’ sometimes in almost the precise language. I used. It amuses me to- see the * Otago Daily Times ’ still asserting that the law has been an utiler failure. I only wish we could see such a failure in New Zealand ; that is ninetenths of the drinking done away with and only one-terith surviving in the seaport towns. That is what it literally is in Maine and Vermont, though our Plimsolls and Dawsons, - who spent twelve hours or so in the port of Portland and Bangor, are pleased to assert the contrary, and “ the editorial wisdom ” quotes them as authorities. With kind regards to all friends in Dunedin and about, yours very faithfully, William Fox.”