CORRESPONDENCE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 193, 23 September 1909, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

NO-LICENSE. To the Editor. Sir, —The critic, to he justified of his mission, most know neither fear nor repolse; neither popular approbation, nor be biased by that sentiment erroneously accepted by the emotional as Pact. He most not permit dismay to dominate effort, if that effort be the elucidation of Troth. Else the critique* of rocb defenders of pore ethics in sociology, morals, and Art. as, say, ft* Triad, whose wholesome denunciation* of all things inane and bogus, in these days of highly machined superficialities. it b so cheering to read, were mere street corner and drawing-room gossip, and as worthy. Neither most his equable tread b» deflected by cowards, who over pseudonyms think to gall an opponent with assinine puerilities irrelevant to the matter in hand. Let us now to our meats: —

If this prohibition panacea is so astoondingly enobling and beneficent, as is persistently asserted, how came it that its array of its prominent advocates made such a poor show; that the specimen products, presented the other night were not op to catalogue standard, in physique, in mental furniture, in oratory, nor in that large capacity for brotherly sobdominance of the strong to the weak, their cult, and the Nazarcnes' precepts command? —Commercial prudence has taught the shop window dresser to display his best goods, that the passer be tempted inside—What charity, what kindly, affectionate facial ensign, was shown that the heart welled with compassion: -—Brothers, we fpel the heft of your burden, your abctston from alt that makes life tolerable; that you are the sappers and miners of a nation s prosperity ; that your surroundings are but half a remove from the barbar. in civilised comfort, and tha» yoo bear this with a heroism the heritage of heroic ancestors, and is in the blood and bone of you: that you are toilers and delver*. with scant hope that you will eat of the seeds yoo are planting, hot that we. outsiders, and our children, will grow sleek on the fruits of your loin-ache. If now, bearing all this as yoo do you feel that a moderate stimulant will hearten you aeainst the buffets awaiting your morrow; that when you arrive at yotjr journey's end mud-ercrustcd and dog-beaten, and this world appears the beat place to be speediest quit of, and all things jost seem created to smash up your coinage, we wilt not object to thm> fingers of your favourite brand; we will order the constable not to sneak round, and cat-tread, and sniff at your back doors, and peer in where the blinds don't fit close to the jambs: neither shall he degrade your manhood when the train comes in, by demanding to know the contents of your gripsac; neither shall a fool law compel yoo to swear, that the flask in your pocket was not imported to start a "sly-groggery"—as our atristic English euphoniously defines it—! Neither will we any longer suborn that filthy crawlsome thing, the pimp, to tempt yoo to unlicensed acts. In short. aft the onmentionabfy despicable aids to suppression we now resort to, but the honourable reformer would not touch with a stable fork, you shall no longer be tortured with. But. listen: If we find that you abure the privilege; that you drink to excess, we shall swoop down like a btack pestilence andsnatch it away t What say yoo brothers? Is it a deal? This, though a stinted concession to onr lawful demands, were bearable, and would have left no thorn in the wound. fSut when, upon attending the meeting, where some alleviation, some measures of relief, or. even, a weak equivalent of the question, answer, and earnest discussion, were antitnpontly expected, but instead, a continuous tirade of threat, of taunt, of impudent assumption of a jurisdiction not in accord with a whiteman's equities; in fine, atl the Great Nazarene ordered: Do not. were substituted therefor, what wonder that a reversion to the primal instinct; FightT and utterdisgust at the whole contemptible exhibit, should surcharge the hearts of every free man there present? And when it taid on the coping, with:—"Man is better without it." every sane being, with some motherwit, at once conceded the claim, provided that by "Man," the precious information explorers, spoke of themselves snd their Natural kinsfolk the wastrel, bet exempted the vast hosts of temperate partakers; the designers, artisans, and statesmen, who have Kmilt op the civilisation we so clamantly boast of, and construct leviathan Dreadnoughts to secure and maintain. —I am, etc., W. 8., Te Kuiti. A letter has been received from an Ohura footballer complaining of the fact that the Hyde Banner was not presented to the Mangaroa team on the occasion of the Matiere Club's Ball on September 17th.