Bishop Neville on Prohibition.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 110, 6 November 1896, Page 2

Bishop Neville on Prohibition.

_ «. . Tho views expressed by the Bishop are as follows:— "It is not my intention to go into figures or arguments as to the success or the failure of this scheme in the prevention of drunkenness in particular districts where it has been tried, but I think it within the sphere of my duty as a teacher of morals, and in some humble way I hope an exponent of the mind of God, to point out some grave aspects of this subject which have either been lost sight of in the heat of argument or which at least have not yet received the attention which their importance demands. The question is what is likely to be the moral effect of Prohibition upon a community supposing the law to enforce it ? Ido not think I say top, much when % affirm that a compulsory abstention would be in the highest degree demoralising. We must remember that in the moral sphere there are, so, tg speak, planes of varying devotion, and, though the consequences of insobriety are terrible indeed,* yet the striking and

ruinous character of those consequence^ are themselves liable to blind us to the less observable, because more subtle, dangers of the application of force &£ ft. remedy, and the dangers thus produced may in the end be of even more ruinoos. results to a community because they are, dangers which operate upon a h^he^ plane. Let me try to malse myself more clear : lam not merely saying that com* pnlsion as a remedy for drunkenness \a sure to prove a failure, though I fear it would be so. I hear of demijohns o£ whiskey being delivered, at railway stations in great numbers in Prohibition districts lor the use of private families, which in so far as it true is a spread-! ing of temptation over a wider area.. Bat when I said that in my opinion the, compulsory stoppage of the sale of nn* fermented liquors would be demoratf Ring, I referred to two distinct views of the subject which ought not to be lost sight of. The first is the almost certain evil of the formation of a public character ■

: ti^ which the vices of deceit aud hypocrisy and dishonesty would be largely developed, and these. I take it, are immoralities of a deeper dye than drunkenness itself The other is the departure made by this scheme of Prohibition from God's way of dealicg with his creatures as moral agents."