WORLD’S TEMPERANCE SUNDAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1637, 14 November 1916, Page 4

WORLD’S TEMPERANCE SUNDAY.

SERMON BY THE KEY. W. 1 ROWE. SOME STARTLING FIGURES. Sunday last was observed by the majority of Christian churches throughout the world as “Temperance Sunday.” At the local Methodist Church on Sunday evening the Rev. W. Rowe based his remarks on Joshua VII., 13. He said: — “For upwards of four thousand years the drink evil has been making rivers of wretchedness, and waging war upon the peace and happiness of mankind, destroying some of virtue’s fairest flowers, and some of wisdom’s richest fruitage. Egypt,the source of science, Babylon, the wonder and glory of the old world, Greece, the home of learning and liberty, Rome, proud of her Caesars, and once mistress of the earth, now the modern nations, all in turn have had their hearts lacerated by this dreadful evil, and many of them have become a prey for the destroyer. The drink traffic has supplied every gaol, penitentiary, poorhouse, and hospital with tenents. It has sent forth beggars on every street, and flooded every city with beastiality and crime. It has probably done more towards bringing earth and hell together than any other crime, reminding us of the Jewish proverb, that where Satan cannot go in person he sends wine. The whole theory of medical science upon the question of the action of alcohol has been revolutionised during the past thirty years, and the fact that the drinking habit is responsible for much of the disease which afflicts mankind, and many of the deaths which men succumb to is now fully attested by competent authorities. Let me quote but one. The late Sir Victor Horsley, who paid the. extreme sacrifice on the Mesopotamia battlefield, attributed to alcohol a potent cause of disease, poverty and death. Since the outbreak of hostilities, his views were not altered by his experience on the battlefield. On one occasion he refe/red to the great effort of Britain to repel the murder and robbery instigated by the Kaiser, and said: “We are allowing another army to hang on our flanks to rob us of our reserves —the army of distillers and brewers. In England in peace time they kill 60,000 every year.” In his numerous letters to his wife from Mesopotamia, there is hardly one that does not refer to intoxicants, and without exception in tenor almost of despair at its prevalent use and the harm that it wrought. Lord Thief Justice Coleridge said frequently that Tf England could be made sober three-fourths of her gaols could be closed.’ Mr Justice Hawkens maintained that the root of almost alt crime is drink. Sir James Hannen, the most experienced divorce court: judge in England, admitted that 75 per cent, of the divorce cases which came before him originated in drinking. Our own Chief Justice (Sir RobertStout), in sentencing a member of the 17(b Reinforcements, spoke his mind when he said: Tf our nation is to be efficient, and our soldiers efficient, liquor is surely not one of the things that are going to make it so. In my ojiinion no soldier ought to be allowed to taste sti’ong drink of any kind. However. the public do not seem to think so. They seem to think that the liberty of England is a great thing, but that the liberty of drink is a matter of greater importance.’ In France to-day a poster might be seen in every post office stating that ‘since 1870 drink has cost France in men and money much more than the present war. This should cause us to pause and view with alarm the wicked waste of much of the nation’s wealth on a useless and deadly commodity. In view of the urgent need for economy in all departments of the nation’s life the resources of the Empire should be guarded to-day with the most jealous care. One of the greatest drains upon our financial strength js the liquor traffic. Britain’s drink bill is’ estimated at the enormous sum of £182,000,000 per annum, and she is credited with spending on liquor during the first twenty months of the war the appalling sum of £300,000,000, which reduced to a daily expenditure, works out at something like £500,(000 per day. Now, at this jucture of our history, think of what that sum of money might do. £500,000 per day would provide 80,000,000 cartridges for our soldiers, provide 3JIO aeroplanes, and would odd three Super-Dreadnoughts jo the British fleet every fortnight. Was it any wonder, in the face of these facts, that the Minister of Munitions at Home said that ‘the brewers’ dray blocks the ainfflUJihion waggon.’ And that Lloyd said, *We are fighting Germany, A-jisjria. sisml drink, and so far as I can se,e the greatest of these deadly foes is drink-’ Mr Arthur Mee, in the London Chronicle, said, ‘We pay 5,0001)00 a day to heat the Kaiser and carry on Lord Kitchener’s work, and for £1,000,000 a week we license a power that plays the KaMpy’s game by weakening England, and keeps back the harvest of Lord Kitchener’s work/ Added to the financial waste are the waste of labour, the loss of efficiency and life, and the cost of dealing with .the dire results of the traffic. Our own drink bill in New Zealand for 1915 was £4,408,185, a cost of £3 16s SGI per fed of the population, which is iw ipgyease on the previous year of You will thus ■see that in spite of the increased

cost of living', more liquor has been consumed, which must mean increased privation and poverty. -Not only that, hut think' of what we might have done for the Umpire with the four and a-half millions which have been poured down the throats of the people. Two of the most modern Dreadnoughts in the world might have been presented to the navy" We could have provided for the construction of over 2,500 aeroplanes for the Empire, or 706,000,000 cartridges for our boys at the front. “We could have paid the whole interest charge on our own national debt of 964 millions and carried a credit balance forward. Alas! Instead of a tremendous amount of good being' accomplished a vast amount of evil has been wrought. The wealth has been wasted, efficiency has been impaired, labour and industry have suffered. Then we remember that it has accounted also for 13,268 arrests for drunkenness, and has caused untold suffering throughout, (he length and breadth of this fair land. I want you to understand, too, that out of 13,268 convictions for drunkenness only 412 were recorded against the eight Xo-Licen-

sc districts in this country. These eight districts represent more than eleven times ihe population of Gisborne, a license district which has 449 convictions recorded against it, that is, more than all the other NoLicense districts put together. Xow let, me say further, the nations engaged in the present war are not blind to the terrible realities of the liquor ev?l. In the year prior to the war Russia’s drink bill amounted to the enormous amount of £150,000,000, and as the national drink of vodka was monopolised by the State, one-third of the whole of I ho State revenue was secured from this source alone. But when war broke out so great was the danger to efficiency and productiveness and the life of the Empire from the vodka traffic that the Czar abolished il from his realm with a stroke of the pen. And there is no end to the testimony regarding the immense moral, physical and economical gains which have resulted. John Foster-Fraser, in “Russia of Today,’ speaks in the highest terms'of the Russian prohibition movement. Manufacturers informed him that, enforced ahstineneo had increased industrial efficiency by 25 per cent. And in spite of the high eost of living, M. Barck, the Minister for Finance, declared that ‘during the first 20 months of war Russia without Ihe national drink had increased her Savings Banks deposits by no less than £400,000,000.’ Franco at tlit* outbreak of hostilities acted in a similar manner, •abolishing the sale of absinthe and forbidding the opening of now public houses. In April, 1915, General Jofl're issued a. decree forbidding the sale of all spirits in the war zone. France may not have been as drastic in her action as Russia, owing to the inllnenee of the ‘'Trade,' but she lias faithfully endeavoured to rid herself of (he evil which threatened to sap away her strength and life. Britain, 100, although faced with a drink problem too strong for Lloyd George to solve effectively, has done something towards genuine reform by grappling with and weakening the power of the drink evil in the nation’s life. Three quarters of the population of Great Britain are today living in areas where the sale of liquor is restricted to five or five and a-half hours per day. The results, according to eye witnesses, are decreased drunkenness, increased efficiency, and a greater productivity of labour. It has helped to speed up munition making, ship building and repairs, and has had a salutary effect upon every department of the nation’s life. Canada has been dealing with the evil as it deserves to be treated, by wiping it out of every province except Quebec. Ronmanja, our last ally to enter the war, has had the courage to tackle the drink evil. And, coming nearer home, the Australian Commonwealth lias not been slow to grapple with the evil that is crippling its life. Six o’clock closing has been carried in South Australia at a referendum, with beneficial results. So it has in Victoria, Tasmania, and Xiny South Wales. And the Governments of Queensland and Western Australia, have deal) wi)h jhe subject by curtailing the hours for the sale of liquor. What about Xew Zealand? Well may we ask the question. Wc« have to write ‘lchnbod’ over her national life to-day, for the glory of leading the world in temperance reform has departed, and she is in the humiliating position of being well in the rear of this great worldmovement. Petitions were presented to Parliament for anti-‘shouting’ and the fj o’clock closing of hotel bars during the war arjd 6 months attei'. In a very short time over -169,()()() signatures were secured for the early closing petition, but the effort was fruitless. Resolutions in favour of early closing, sept to fhe Government by representative gatherings of nearly all

the churches, met with a similar fate. The only measure brought down by Parliament was the AntiShouting Bill, which, to my mind, is a farce to a very great extent. Drinking men in Foxton have (old me that in order to enforce such a. measure a policeman needs to bo sitting on a bar counter day and night. Why should this evil thing be allowed to live in our midst? It is an evil which is enslaving our people, dominating our politics, and making cowards of our public men. Let us follow the example of those who are abstaining from its use, who are boycotting it in every form, and who arc seizing every opportunity to destroy the evil that is destroying mankind. The nation and the Kingdom of God know no greater enemy, and it behoves everyone of us to work and pray and light, for its overthrow and abolition from our land. Take away the accursed thing from your midst, and you will be able to shout ‘Jehovah has triumphed, His people are free.’ ”