Mr Tennyson Smith

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 77, 17 December 1892, Page 2

Mr Tennyson Smith

«, IS PROHIBITION RIGHT ? With the above for his subject Mr Tennyson Smith deliyered an earnest and telling lecture last Thursday evening, to a large and sympathetic audience. The Bey Mr Watkins presided. Mr Smith said, in this country the work of the temperance party was something worth fiuhting for, as in New Zealand there is every probability of their ends being attained during tiie lifetime of many of those present. During the week they had been trying to show the awful results of drink. The lecturer went on to quote statistics bearing upon the question. The publicans admitted these evils, and professed to be willing to aid them in their endeavours, but he did not want their assistance, and was going to fitjht the matter without giving or accepting quarter, Do away with the drink, as a natural result drunkenness ceases, Whoever we voted for should pledge himself absolutely for prohibition, be he Tory or Liberal. Let "all denomi nations work hand in hand together on this question. They were perfectly willing to admit the moderate drinking friends into their League, but did not care to put them on their Committees. They should not use the argument of legality with them. The drinkers are the most systematic set of law breakers extant, and the Sunday Closing Act was a down right disgrace to the country. Row many hotels would there be in NewZealand if the publicans got their deserts? Not one. The speaker then alluded to scurrilous attacks which had been made upon him, and denied that he was seeking to make pecuniary benefit out of this town, and instanced handsome offers from the " much travelled Smythe" and from Sydney, which he had declined. People said the drink traffiic was chained, but they might as well be without the chain, seeing the way in which the law was evaded. In the tuture, not a man will get into office without the prohibitionist wills it. The lecturer dealt satisfactorily with a number of questions during his address. There was a good attendance at the Assembly Kooms last evening when Mr Smith gave his farewell lecture, entitled 1 The Trial of a Notorious Criminal.' The Rev Mr Murray occupied the chair. Mr Smith had an enthusiastic reception. His lecture (an original one) was both striking and entertaining and a power ful indictment of the drink traffic. At the conclusion a vote of thanks to the lecturer was very heartily carried, the speakers referring in eulogistic terms to the work accomplished during the mission. Mr Smith made an earnest appeal to the audience to join the Good Templar Lodge.