TEMPERANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 November 1928, Page 1

TEMPERANCE

Temperance is one of the threat virtues, J>o you ever meet nowadays in preliihition propaganda with anything in praise of temperance. or even any mention of temperance? Of course not. on will find masses of adulterated or irrelevant statistics about the savings hanks in Miami, masses of opinion by people who are directly or indirectly interested iir the economic value of prohibition, but of temperance not a word. Prohibition has as little to do with temperance as with patience or charity. II it lms done nothing else the prohibition campaign has unintentionally restored the word “temperance” to the place from which it was temporarily dragged down. Prohibition is not a negation of excess: it is a negation of true temperance. The misuse of money causes more harm than the misuse of fermented liquor, but wise men urge the temporal'.' mean between the excess of the spendthrift and the excess of the miser. And the vast majority .of New Zealanders keep the temperate mean, which is the mean between, and apart Irom, the two ex-tremes—-the drunkard and the lanatieal prohibitionist. Ninety-nine people mil of a hundred in this: country live temperately and wisely. It is not intemperance that the prohibitionists are attacking, hill tompeianee and liberty. No wonder that you find no mention ol temperance* in the prhoibition arguments. . C,