TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2029, 25 August 1880, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

("Edithd by O. M. G.l THE NEW ZEALAND DRINK BILL. The following figures represent, as nearly as possible, tho total amounts expended in New Zealand during the past ten years on intoxicating liquors:— £ 1870 2,262,207 1871 1,966,651 1872 2191,546 1873 2,491632 1874 3,259,722 1875 3,036,506 1876 3,116 3(51 1877 2032,285 1878 3,199,406 1879 3,046,999 Grand Total ... £27,506^365 Being an average expenditure of £2,750,636 lOj per annum. THE PUBLIU OR THE PUBLICAN ? Tho manner in which the new Licensing Bill, now before the House of Representatives, is dealt with, will indicate whether legislation in New Zealand is to be in the interest of the public or for the benefit of the publicans, licensed grocers, wholesale liquor merchants, and others interested in the sale of grog. The Bill as it stands, with suoh amendments as were suggested attheDunedin meeting, would be a great improvement on the existing laws. If the Bill be amended as proposed, a"d then passed into law, it will still afford vory great facilities for obtaining liquor—facilities which must ineyitably end in much intemperance—yet tho new measure will be an important advance on any thing in the way of liquor legislation we have had in the colony. It is, however, roported that the Government propose to reinstate the bottle license. If this ia done, and the House accepts the amendment, it will rob the measure of one of ita best features. We apprehend the Government will urge, in justification of the roadmisßion of bottle licenses, that no very strong {demonstration has been made against them, while they have had petitions and deputations and correspondence in their favour.

The Government seem ever to lose eight of the fact that pro-liquor demonstrations are always instigated or led by those who have a direct pecuniary interest in the attainment of the object sought after. It pays them to spend time and money to secure some concession to the trade. On the other hand, antiliquor movements have to be undertaken by men who have nothing directly to gain, but everything to lose in the prosecution of the work to which, by disinterested and philanthropic motives, they are i-iduced to put their hands. They have to spend time and money and labor; to sacrifice home comfort and personal ease; to expose themselves chimes to obloquy and personal ill-will; and frequently to encounter the laughter, if not the scorn, of those for whose benefit all the work is done, and all the sacrifices are made. The public have a right to anticipate that the Government which exists for the conservation of the public weal, having determined that certain legislation is necessary for the public good, will not be moved from their purpose by the clamor of those who, like the goldsmiths of Ephesus, see that their craft is endangered by much-needed reform. They have a right to feel satisfied that their interests are safe in the hands of the Government, and that the Government will stand as a rampart between them and the selfishness of those who care not what becomes of the moral, social, and material well-being of the State, so long as the trade by which they live is allowed to prosper unchecked. The public, therefore, do not feel called on to prepare memorials, to send deputations, and what not, to convince the Government that the proposals they have themselves made are good, and should be sustained by them. If the Government yield in any particular to the pressure of any branch of the trade, and sacrifice the good of the public to the benefit of the publican, the day will come when the members of the Government will have to aocount for their proceedings to their constituents ; and another time will come when to a higher tribunal they will have to render account of the opportunities and power for good whioh they have enjoyed, and of the uses whioh they have made of them. —N.Z. " Temperance Herald." WHAT THE NEWSPAPERS TELL US. That 195 persons committed suicide through drink last year in London, while the average of those who died of starvation is one per week. That a woman, who had been the proprietress of 100 lodging houses, made a large fortune and spent it in drink, became a teetotaller for four years, was given brandy medicinally at St. Bartholomew's hospital, and died drunk in bed.) That the Bight Hon. J. Stansfeld, M.P., is in favor of reasonable and practical restrictions of the liquor traffic, for which he can " see a prospect of a sufficiently preponderating mass of public opinion." That a mob at Dover, of whom the Secretary of the Licensed Victualler's Association was'tho spokesman, broke up a Sunday-cloß-iDg meeting, and all the furniture on the platform, singing, "God Save the Queen," and" John Barleyoorn." A Eolkstone mob —perhaps the same people—on the following ovening performed similar vagaries. That Thomas Rrchardson has been sentenced to death for the murder of John Hart, at Newcastle, after a quarrel in a publichouse. That at the Bell Hotel, St. Alban's, a commercial traveller who boasted he had already killed fifteen men in his time, stabbed a local tradesman because he would not box with him. That a woman named McCann has been beaten to death in a drunken quarrel by a soldier, within half a milo of Portadown, Ireland. That a man fell down dead after drinking with a number of dealers at the Wbeatsheaf Hotel, Daventry, and the jury returned a verdiot of death from natural causes. OHIP3. The brewing firm of Bass and 00. employ a capital of £3,200,000. Rev. J. Or. Gregson reports more than 8000 abstainers in the army of India. Eive Temperance measures have been introduced in the present Legislature of California.

Over 80,000 petitions have been presented in the Ohio Legislature asking lor local option. Twenty-four new Lodges of Good Templars were organised in Missouri during the month of February. San Francisco licensed last year 2053 places to sell intoxicating liquors, and made 8400 arrests for drunkenness.

" Olub drinking," one of the ways of evading the prohibitory law, has received a severe blow from the Maine Legislature. The " Wine-Dealer's Gazotte " warns the " Temperance fanatics" of the California Legislature that there is for them " wrath to come."

The " New York Tribune " says : —" Grogshops in which murder is the least probable should be shut up." In what, grog-shops is it not probable ? San Francisco has several Temperance coffee-houses which are largely patronised, and are self-supporting. The fifth was opened recently. Rev. Joseph. Oook says:—"lf a man has pnro blood and keeps it uncontaminated from wine and tobacco, he will not be likely to be led astray." Another New York judge is under charges before the Bar Association for drunkenness. Alcohol, when tampered with, is no respecter of persons. The Jerseyville "Examiner" asks: " Has anybody regulated the devil yet ?" and adds :—" When that's done, talk about regulating whisky with lioense." Fifty Lodges of Good Templars have been instituted in Maine since last October, making an aggregate at the present time of about three hundred.

" The Non-Alcoholic Cookery Book" is the suggestive title of a small volume recently published in London by the British Woman's Temperance Association. The New York '* Herald " says of "treating " :—" This habit of standing treat is the cause of more physical and mental discomfort than every other convivial custom combined." The " Herald " knows.

A negro was put upon the stand as a witness, and the judge inquired if he understood the nature of an oath. " For certing, boBB," said tho citizen ; "if I swears to a lie I must stick ta aim."