HOTEL AT RONGOTEA.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 2, 2 July 1897, Page 2

HOTEL AT RONGOTEA.

(to the editor.) Sir,—Yonr article with reference to the rumour that ftp application is to be submitted to the Licensing Benoh with * i view to obtain an hotel license in Ron- ' gotea, gave me much satisfaction. You reaions are, to my mind, both plain Mid forcible ai to the impropriety ot granting a license in that township, and I with you sincerely hope that any iuch attempt will be defeated. For my own part, although • most determined anti-Prohibit-lonist, I am not at all in favor of naultU plying hotels, especially in localities such as Eongotoa, where there is little or no police control, and where, at you justly observe, not only kave the inhabitants hitherto been against the step propoied but licensed houses are within a reasonable distance of tha place. Should, however, recent events and the extreme views of the Prohibitionists have brought about a reaction and provoked reprisals in that locality, I would say to the Moderates there, " Don't follow the bad ex* ample of our friends. Let us show them more justice and generosity than they have displayed towards us, by respecting any reasonable scruples. Let ns remember that we are not fighting for re* vange or in the interests of licensed victuallers, nor for the liquor traffic, but for the great principles of civil and religious toleration, which the fanaticism of our friends has imperilled." From pulpit and platform the great principles of toleration and moderation have been most vehemently assailed, fortunately with httla sucsess compared with the tremendous efforts put forth by the assailants. Let ns then, while w» would present the firmest front against their aggression, and resist to the utmost their attempts to enslave ns, remember that. we are Moderates. Let u« not sully our great victory by having resource to a force the use or the abuse of which we deprecate in others, and thereby disgrace the noble principle of Temperance—not the pseudo thing known by our friends as total liquor Prohibition, but that moderation that eschews persecution and enables one to calmly weigh and respect, or pity according to circumstances, the conscientious scruples of their fallows, and teaches them to draw the golden line between the mean and the extreme. 1 am, etc., J. B. Roots.