THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

Evening Star, Issue 4147, 12 June 1876, Page 4

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

To the Editor. Sir, —It says a great deal for our ministers of religion that they are so much occupied with their own proper work that their conduct rarely induces public criticism. They live lives of self-denial, and labor arduously in a good cause; and they have earned the sympathy and respect, and .deserve the hearty good wishes of the community. As they are men, however, it follows that they maybe expectedto be guilty occasionally of an error of judgment ; and, in my opinion, they committed an ;error of this kind recently /when, in a public petition', : they expressed themselves dogmatically upon a subjcctwhieh involves merely a matter .of. opinion.,. No. doubt, as private citizens, they have a perfect’right to’petition in any way they choose, but it cannot he denied that the petition in question came from them in their official capacity. If it were a doctrine of the Bible that the use of wine was wrong, the ministers would be clearly .entitled to preach against the use of it, but in present circumstances they have no f moral. right to preach otherwise than against the abuse of it. lam hob opinipnative when! say this, but merely state what they themselves* or at any rate, most of them, I believe, woqld acknowledge. Now if I have the moral right to use wine, what would the effect be of depriving the grocer of his bottle license ? It would be this : that I would be compelled to buy my groceries in one shop and my wine in another; and that other an hotel bar; This letter is not being written for the purpose of discussing the propriety or otherwise of hotel bars; but this maybe said, that my . self or my messenger, whoever he or she might be, would probably be less in the way of temptation by purchasing both wine and groceries in the grocer’s shop than by the other plan proposed, in effect, by the ministers, of going to the shop for the one and the bar for the other. ; r I cannot believe, and neither it may’be presumed do the ministers believe, that it is a common practice among grocers to treat women to altfoholic liquors in their shops ; but assuming that such a vile practice exists to some the ministers will have the full sympathy of every right-thinking man in preaching against it. Bui would the suppression of the bottle license remedy this evil? I’do not think so. The object'Of the grocer who thus treats women must be to induce her to frequent his shop and be his customer; and it is evident that the bottle license could not possibly have any controlone way or the other over his office cupboard. Perhaps I ought to explain in concise terms that by the use of “dogmatically” in the above I mean, thht the petition referred to Involved the condemnation of wine as an ordinary mercantile commodity, and by inference, its compulsory disuse by those who do not choose to frequent hotel bars.— I am, &c., . Private Life. Dunedin, June 8.