“LICENSING ELECTION.—A FEW FACTS.”

Motueka Star, Volume IV, Issue 169, 3 April 1903, Page 4

“LICENSING ELECTION.—A FEW FACTS.”

MR. ATMORE IN REPLY.

To the Editor.

Sir: My attention having been drawn to a letter which appeared in your issue of March 27th, over the signature "E. S. Dukes " I should like, with your permission, to use your columns for a reply. My critic appears to labour under a misconception as to what really constitutes the opinions ofa Moderate. Let me assure him I am a Moderate because Prohibition is Anti-Christian ; and, has failed where tried ; 3rd, that Moderate drinking is not injurious; 4th, that drunkenness is on the decrease ; and lastly, "Force is no remedy " Considering the above heads in detail, Prohibition is Anti-Christian because Christ was a moderate drinker. He made wine to exemplify the power of God: commanded all those who believed in Him to drink wine in remembrance of Him. How then can it b'e wrong for us to do as Christ did ? Christ is the Founder of our Christian morality. He always acted with Divine and, therefore, inlallible wisdom Hovv then, considering Christ drank in moderation, can we advocate Prohibition without questioning His Divine Wisdom ? Is our knowledge and wisdom greater than His t I think not. No competent teacher has ever yet succeeded in maintaining thac within the Christian scheme of life drink is wrong in itself. St Paul has said "I know and am persuaded by our Lord Jesus Christ that there is nothing unclean of itself, etc." The immortal John Milton wrote "God commands us Temperance (not prohibition), yet pours out in profusion all good things." Personally, I think Christian ministers preaching Prohibition are drawing salaries for preaching a doctrine antagonistic to Christ's own action Re the intoxicating nature of the wine in use at the time of Christ there cannot be two opinions now.

Secondly, Prohibition has failed where tried, notably in America, where there are fewer States with Prohibition now than there were 10 years ago. Would the Americans give up a good thing ? General Clark Edwards, Democratic candidate for Governor of the State of Maine, in 1898, said, "I have hitherto been a supporter of Prohibition. I am a rigid abstainer from all intoxicants, in fact intoxicants have never crossed my lips. I voted for the Maine Liquor Law. I thought it was going to prove a preventive, but for a very long time past I have been obliged reluctantly to recognise that as a preventive to liquor drinking it is an absolute failure. It does not prevent, irdeed it seems to increase, the drinking proclivities of the people: Ido not hesitate to say that in the State of Maine there is, with a reduced population, tar more drinking than there was before Prohibition was carried. Added thereto, the drinking is of a more vicious character. It is a sad condition of affairs. 1 have always acted according to convictions, and I am convinced that Prohibition based on the results we have had in Maine, is an utter failure so far as a reduction Zof drinking is concerned." The above was spoken by a man who saw Prohibition a failure, and was honest enough to say so.

Thirdly, "Moderate drinking is not inms!ous-" hi considering this point, Mr Editor, I am bearing in mind that I am replying to a critique by one of the medical profession. Let me ask him one question. Suppose we had two subjects before us for a post mortem examination, one being the body ol a man eighty years old who had never tasted intoxicants, the other cf equal age who had been a moderate drinker all his life. I will now ask thislearned and critical medico of Motueka whether he or the most eminent pathologist in the world could by a microscopic post mortem examination say with certainty which was the moderate drinker ? If he can, let me assure him that he is wasting his talent "on the desert air," by living in Motueka, for the leading medical men of the Prohibition world in London had to reply 111 the negative when this question was asked recently by a physician who is a moderate. Probably the opinion of Sir Dyce Duckworth M.D. L.L.D., Physician to the Law Life Assurance Society (who read a paper on this subject at the International Gongress at the Hague, and again at the International Congress of the Lite Assurance Medical Officers, Amsterdam 1901) may carry some weight with our learned friend. Duckworth states, with « years' experience of examining for Life As I surance Companies, " I affirm that there is no evidence to prove that persons who properly employ alcohol suffer any damaee or deterioration of the textures, and I have betore now stated that the lives of trulv moderate of alcohol are probably on the whole better and more useful than those of abstainers;" and again, " I have

great confidence in the value of a little good wine as a most useiul article of diet " Fourthly, "Drunkenness is decreasing" 1 his fact is very self evident. Let anyone compare the number of drunkards who used to parade our streets 20 years with the almost irreducible minimum to be seen now, And this happy result has noc listen attained by the efforts of Prohibitionists. The uplifting factors have been better education, and the knowledge that a man must not drink to excess if he wishes to succeed in these times of keen competition, where the power of a clear head cannot be over estimated. Moderate drinking does not effect cleat thinking :it is the excess that does the mischief: The prohibition nations of the earth, the Turks and Chinese, are also the scum of the earth, unsurpassed in their devilish cruelt". The nations leading the world morally socially, commercially and intellectually are the English, Germans, and Americans, who are also, strange to sav, the largest consumers of liquor. Dr. Dukes, my critic, says that the average amount per head for each man, woman and child in this colony is i2| gallons of liquor per annum, and he adds "I think none of us will agree with Mr Atmore in calling that moderation:" Allow me to point out that the 12* gallons per head amounts to a little over a quarter ct a pint per day. Beastly intemperance is it not, Dr. Dukes ? Why, a lady making a few afternoon calls would consume six times as much. If we put all the liquor consumed in New Zealand in a year to the credit ol men alone it would not amount to a pint per day. My medical critic says your readers will not agree with me in calling that moderation, but I have a higher opinion ot their intelligence myself. Let me give him a few figures. The arrests per thousand for drunkenness in Nelson average z\ ; lor New Zealand, 7 ; Western Australia, 18 ; and for Prohibition Maine 42.

Dr Dukes evidently thinks that the worth of barley and hops raised m Nelson is used in the Colony, but the greater part is shipped to Australia or England. He also thinks it would be better spent in drugs. O, well, every man to push his own business. Personally, I should prefer good wholesome wine" 'to drugs. In considering the last head, "Force is no remedy" let me refer to the failure of the Prohibitory laws in America ; Archbishop Laud's attempt to stamp out Presbyterianism in Scotland, which left it so than ever . Cromwell's attempt to ■fcif . Ireland of Roman Catholicism, left that country more intensely Catholic than before.

A defence of the adoption of the term "moderate" would not be complete without a reference to the intemperate utterances of the so called (but wrongly) Temperance Party. One of its leaders recently stated in Christchurch that he "would sooner keep a brothel than a pub." Prohibitionists should be moderate, shewing more charity, and offering counter attract tions to the present ones which they say are of a pernicious character. I do not consider that our present Licensing Laws are perfect, but I do contend that Prohibition is not the remedy for the evils of excess. Is the Doctor prepared to advocate the abolition of churches because some people get religious mania ? Finally, let me say I shall be only too happy to

meet mv tnend Dr Dukes on a Motueka or Nelson platform and debate this question Thanking you in anticipaI am etc., v~v ™ , Harry Atmore. inc.s >n, March 30th, 1903.