Correspondence.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 138, 10 December 1896, Page 2

Correspondence.

PROHIBITION. TO THE EDITOB Sir, — I deeply regret that now the election is over and Mr Wilßon is one of the victors, that he should let his feelings so overcome him (hat he allows himself to forget the good manners, courtesy, and common instincts which should characterise a gentleman, and has made one of the most abusive and scurrilous attacks upon a defeated opponent and cause which I have ever seen. I have never abused him nor any other man who has differed from me ; I have never interrupted speakers when speaking. This I know Mr Wilson has done. As a Christian minister, I have fought the drink traffic because I believe it is a great evil and the cause of untold sorrow and misery ; but I have had the kindliest feelings towards my opponents, and on Saturday evening last, at my home, I bad a Feilding publican and a well-known New Zealand brewer to tea., and we had a friendly chat, and they gave me credit for having fought in a manly, conscientious manner. This is more than Mr Wilson has the courtesy or manliness to do. I have been influenced by no selfish motive. Financially, I have nothing to gain, but, with others, have been a loser. I have, during the last few months, worked eighteen and sometimes twenty hours a day on account of extra chnrch work I have had, besides advocating the cause of Prohibition. I have been ridiculed, abused, and sneered at, slighted by tbose who formerly were my friends, and abased in the street. Why I have borne this, I call God, the Great Judge, who knoweth the heart, to witness that the welfare of my fellow men and the desire to remove a temptation from the path of humanity has been the motive which has tempted me. My Muter bore sbame and derision, and at last died for the welfare of mankind ; and in this tight my daily prayer has been that I might have more of the Spirit of the Cross, and had I been alone, instead of having fifteen hundred companions in the electorate, I would have taken the same stand. Because Mr Wilson cannot agree with me he writes one of the most abusive and slanderous letters that a man could pen without being profane. He writeß of myself as a "dissenting" minister, as though God made dissenting ministers of inferior clay to those of the nondissenting chnrch, and he classes the Prohibition cleric as undesirable and on a level with the confirmed drunkard. He compares myself to "a fiend," " a bull dog," and " a paid pugilistic bully." Now, such an attack I declare to be dishonorable, ungentlemanly, slanderous, contemptible, and cowardly. I call it cowardly because though he refers to myself as a cleric in Feilding he had not the courage to mention my name, but writes thinly - disguised insinuations. Had I been a settler or tradesman of the district, instead of what he terms a " dissenting " minister, he would never have dared to dirty his pen, by writing such foul abuse. He says, '* Had it not been for the injudicious zeal of the clerics, we should Jiave had but tittle tad feeling." That be confesses he is prompted by bad feeling, and that, not * little, is so much to his credit. Though very much .mistaken in his idea&~as no doubt he honestly believes I am—yet I had credited Mr Wilson with hiving the manners and tastes of a gentleman until I saw his letter in last, night's paper, and I cannot help bnt think now that he is a better man than hit letter of unrestrained abuse would allow us to think. I do not think the publicans wonld have penned such a letter, and let me here say that though on the day of the election I stood at the polling booth with publicans and brewers as my opponents I received nothinp but courteous treatment from them, and I noticed a brewer in my congregation on Sunday. Evidently the bad feeling is with Mr Wilson even more than with the publicans. The Prohibitionists have fought a battle which, in this electorate, they knew meant defeat, but a party which at its first real fight can poll 1500 votes has no reason to be afraid of its strength, but will take courage and at once prepare for the next struggle. We are not disgraced, and we know no final defeat. Bight for a time may be on the scaffold and wrong on the throne, but God our helper still lives. The Prohibition cause was never so strong as to-day, We have polled many thousand more votes this election than last, aud though the victory is delayed it is not delayed for long. "Woe onto yea when all men shall speak well of you." I am, etc., J. Cockkr. Feilding, December 9th, 1896. [Now that the election is over we ihink it advisable that this correspondence should cease— at least for a time.— si>. F.S.J