CORRESPONDENCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 12 May 1891, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

♦ . ...... J We are not responsibe for the statem ens or opinions of correspondents. ,; • THE LICENSING QUESTION. (to the editob OF THE MANAWATU HEBAtli.) Sm, — I ara not a subscriber to your paper, but I may become one. Will you kindly allow me space for $ few lines on the above aubject. I It appears there are some of our fellow citizens here iri Foxton that, have voted for more houses, here.ml this place, wherein intoxicating; drinks may be sold. Now, I: hsMr the trade in alcohol, in any fo_m*&, shape (as it is at this time) .StouT most destructive and ruinous undertaking to the community, of any- i thing that exists. Ido not hate the men who are implicated in it, but I hate the traffio as such, in i ev^rv

form, and pity the men from the bottom of my heart that are in it, and do not see the evil of it. The trade is so wicked that some who were in it, and had so much conscience as to get disgusted with it, gave it up. And now some of our fellow townsmen will open the door for others to come into that accursed trade. But it appears they do it with a view that if there come more of grog shops the one will ruin the other, and the trade will stop ! Can there be anything more absurd than siwi an idea ? They will first cause thjfe* ruin of these poor deluded men, and then how many scores and hundreds would they not ruin before they are ruined themselves ? For to make the*r trale pay, they would do all they could to sell their drinks, and what that would cause I need not specifiy, everyone knows it, alas ! Let us now say we had three grog shops more ; they could not exist ; would they then all six give up? would not some continue ? May these, my fellow citizens, see their error, and repent, and God forgive them, for their erro: '..-; vory giva t. If anything is to do evil that good may come, this is. And such principle is condemned of God. (Romans 111. 8.) I have unburdened my heart, let follow what may. -I am, &c, Abraham Honore, Sen. Foxton, llth May, 1891.