THE HON. MR. FOX ON THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5101, 30 July 1877, Page 2

THE HON. MR. FOX ON THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.

Pursuant to announcement the Hon. Wm. Fox, Mr.H.R., delivered a lecture on Saturday evening, in St. Andrew’s Church, Lambtonquay, on the following subject:—“Does Prohibition Prohibit.” There was a fair attendance, the clergy being well represented, and a number of the leading citizens of Wellington being among the audience. On the motion of the Rev. Mr. Ogg the Ven. Archdeacon Stock was elected to the chair.

The Chairman having referred to the deep interest being taken in the question which would form the subject of that evening’s consideration, in a few well chosen words introduced the lecturer.

The Hon. Mr. Fox, in his opening remarks, said he had been requested to deliver a lecture upon a branch of the temperance question, and he had acceded to that request with great readiness, because he was always glad to have an opportunity of opening his mouth upon that very important subject. In addressing his audience, he might in the first place say that in connection with all phases of the temperance question the great difficulty he had always met with was not so much a want of zeal as want of knowledge. The community as a whole had never really studied this question—the liquor traffic of to-day and its effects upon society; and even those in connection with temperance associations were lamentably deficient in that knowledge of the subject which ought to carry conviction to their own minds, and enable them to carry conviction to the minds of others. His object on the present occasion was to supply information on one particular branch of the subject. He had been endeavoring to obtain for the country a Local Option Bill, which was to give to the people the power of prohibiting the selling and drinking of intoxicating liquors in the districts in which they live. He then proceeded to speak of the prohibitory law and its working, remarking that it had been said by some who were ignorant on the subject that the prohibitory law had been tried elsewhere and failed. When such class of persons were asked for proof, they produced extracts from papers of which nothing was known, or possibly the querists were met by the statements of travellers who had set their feet for a few hours within a State where the prohibitory law was in force, and where there was a certain' amount of sly-grog selling carried on. They said that the law in such places was a dead failure, and that to the vice of drunkenness was added that of hypocrisy. But the sayings of such classes of society were not to be relied upon. It was ridiculous, for instance, to put in comparison with a man whose knowledge of States in which the law existed was of a most meagre character—to put him in comparison with a man who had lived there, and knew all about its operation. One gentleman had disposed of the whole question by quoting the governors of Massachussetts and Michigan to show that the law was a failure, notwithstanding that they never had the Maine Liquor Law in either of those States. The lecturer quoted other instances of gross ignorance on the subject, and then on the other hand referred his audience to the testimony of gentlemen whose names are well known, among them being the Bight. Eev. Dr. Selwyn, present Bishop of Lichfield, who had travelled through the State of Maine, and testified to the great success of the law there; he also referred them to persons holding high offices in the State of Maine as to the success of the prohibitory law. But what they should ask was, what was the state of the law in that locality before the law was passed,? Well, he would read them the opinions of Mr. Heal Dow, the great father of the Maine law. He says : “ In that old time the trade of Maine—the whole trade was based on rum. The Maudingoes do not believe more firmly in fetish, the Pacific Islanders in taboo than the people of Maine did in rum. But now how changed here in Maine ! The people, as if by common consent, have placed grogshops under the ban of the law, and have resolved, finally, as it seems, to me, to try the experiment—and to see what would come of it -of having a great community without them. If harm should come of it, it would be a very easy thing to take down the fence, and let the traffic in once more upon the State. In the old times the vast territory of Maine was covered with immense forests of pine timber and the entire working power of Maine was devoted to the destruction of this splendid inheritance. Every stream was vexed and fretted by countless water wheels, busy uDht aud day in performing their part of the persistent strip and waste. The returns from this vast industry were little else than rum, for home consumption, and molasses, to be converted into Hew England rum, all for our own home trade. It was literally true that the forests of Maine and the labor of the entire population were devoted to no other purpose than to provide a meagre subsistence to people

of the commonest necessaries of life, with abundance of rum. Everything, beyond mere food and clothes, went for rum; the forests of Maine and the labor of the State went down the throats of the people in the shape of rum. There was no city, town, village, hamlet, or farmhouse in Maine—not one—beyond the influence of this trade. Rum was everywhere, as certain as air and water. Bum could be seen in puncheon and barrel threading way through all channels of communication and of trade ; into every nook and corner of the State, however remote ; into every ntt e log cabm settlement, hidden among the forest hills. There were no railways in those days ; the transportion was by heavy carts and teams of oxen, over the bad roads of the old times. Miles and miles of these teams, transporting from the coast to the interior, a little flour, a little pork, a little sugar, a little molasses, a little salt fish, and a great deal of rum—about two rums to every one of all other articles.^. . And during all these years in the_ old time this vast wealth of timber and this vast industry resulted in nothing but supplying the entire population of the State with rum. When the forests weie exhausted and the people were compelled to resort to other occupations, it was found that the State was no richer, but rather the poorer and the worse, for this vast trade in lumber and the miserable trade in rum. Now it is among this people that temperance has a stronger hold than among any other in the world ; and it is this people who have resolved to drive out entirely from their borders the accursed trade m rum, which formerly absorbed the entire industry of the State. . . . There was no part of our country more cursed with rum than Maine was, or had more drunkenness in it, and consequently more poverty and crime. Everything was poor in it—even in the houses, farms, and public buildings. Every grocer s shop was a grogshop. X do not think it too much to say—but I will not say it—that now there is not a grocer's shop in all the State that sells liquors ; but this I will say, that there is not a grocer's shop in the city of Portland, in which I live, where liquor is sold either openly or secretly. The great majority of the taverns, inns, and hotels in Maine no liquor whatever. In some of them liquor is sold secretly ; but you will see no sign indicating anywhere where it can be obtained. If it is sold at all, it is sold secretly ; and so our people are thrifty and prosperous, as they were not in the old time. There is nothing that marks the difference more than the schoolhouses now as compared with the olden times. Formerly they were ugly and dilapidated —now they are beautiful and costly buildings, all up and down the State ; and nothing more strikes the stranger than their elegance and adaptability. Nor for one or two special cases. On the opposite side of the harbor of Portland is a rural town, called Cape Elizabeth. It is a cape, but still a large rural district. . I remember it in the old time as the poorest and most miserable place in the State, or one of them. I was present at a convention in the city of Portland in the old times, and a minister of religion who was present said of this town, ‘ Three-fourths of all the heads of families in it are drunkards.' In that town now there is not a drop of intoxicating liquor sold—not one. I remember afterwards being at another convention, at which a carpenter was making a speech, and said that he remembered the time when there was not so much paint on any house ‘ as you could put in your eye.’ Now, however, not only the houses, but the bams are painted as well. The cattle are now better housed than the men, women, and children used to be in the old rum time, and yet these members of Parliament come and tell you that the Maine law has been a failure. Six miles from where I live is a manufacturing village. The name of it is Saccarappa. I know it well In the old rum time its character was well known throughout all New England for the drunkenness of its population. Every grocer’s shop was a grogshop, and drunkenness prevailed there to a most fearful extent. Its character was notorious. I will tell you an anecdote to show you exactly what it was. A retired shipmaster went there to live, having first bought a beautiful estate. went into a grocer's shop one day, and some eight or ten men followed him. They said, 1 Captain Partridge, you must treat all the people, for that is the custom.’ ‘ Then you must fight.’ ‘Very well, I can do my share of that,’ aud he soon cleared them all out of the shop. Such was the state of the place under rum ; but now there is not a grogshop in that town—not one. A more peaceable, quiet, orderly, and thrifty town there is not in the State of Maine ; and yet your members of Parliament, having stayed two nights and a day in Portland, come home and tell you the Maine law is a failure !” That was a summary of different opinions expressed with regard to the working of the iron law of Maine, and making allowance for the difference in observations, the statements must be correct. He could give them the evidence of all the leading men of the State. First there was Mr. Sidney Perham, Governor of Maine, June 3, 1872, who in writing to General Neal Dow said: —“In answer to your inquiry in regard to the effect of the Maine law upon the liquor trade in this State, I think it is safe to say that it is very much less since the enactment of the law —probably not one-tenth as large. In some places liquor is sold secretly in violation of the law, as many other offences are committed against the statute and the peace and good order of society ; but in large districts of the State, the liquor traffic is nearly or quite unknown where formerly it was carried on like any other trade.” He alluded also to the ex-Attomey-General of Maine, Mr. Wm. Frye, who now occupies a high position in the United States, and is also a member of Congress, and he affirms that “the consumption of intoxicating liquor is not to-day (in 1872) one-fourth so great as it was twenty years ago; that in the country portions of the State the sale and use have almost entirely ceased; that the law of itself, under a vigorous enforcement of its provisions, has created a temperance sentiment which is marvellous, and to which opposition is powerless. In my opinion, one remarkable temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate child of the law.” Mr, Morrill, the last-mentioned gentleman’s colleague, confirmed this statement, as also did Messrs. Hamlin and Lynch, both members of the United States Congress. He might give a few further words from the Hon. Mr. Frye, who, in delivering a speech at New Jersey, said; every town of 5000 inhabitants or under. In the two cities in his district, of 10,000 each, not a drop of liquor could be bought in any of the hotels. Possibly in some low den the vile stuff might be obtained; but no stranger could find it. It had been enforced all over the State, but not to the same extent. In some large cities liquor was sold; but so were robberies and murders committed. It was enforced as well in proportion as were other laws, and when men said; ‘The Maine Liquor Law is a failure; they either greatly mistook or told a deliberate lie. There was peace and plenty and happiness, there were tens of thousands of happy homes all over the State because of that law. This influence was not confined to Maine. The growing feeling all over the country was due to the Maine law ; it assured public sentiment all over the land. The selling of liquor was made a crime, and there was no trouble in executing the law with such a public sentiment. Of sixty indictments in one Court in his county all pleaded guilty, because they knew the juries would convict.” The lecturer then turned to the town of Portland for a further illustration of the subject he was dealing with, and quoted from letters written, as°to the operation of the law, from Mayors and ex-Mayors of Portland. A statement made by Mr. Wheelwright, for instance, was to the effect that not one-tenth part as much liquor was sold then as in years past; and other testimony was given to the same effect from gentlemen holding high offices in the State, and well qualified to judge of the result of the law’s operation where enforced. He (Mr. Fox) did not deny that the law was infringed at times in certain places. He should like to know what law had not been infringed over and over again; but we were told on the must undoubted authority that the liquor traffic had been reduced by nine-tenths, and it was only in the seaport towns where any considerable difficulty was found in the suppression of the abominable traffic. It was driven into a comer, and liquor was only

to be obtained on a false pretence; that was to say, a person had to “make believe” that he was afflicted with some malady in his gastric regions before you could obtain liquor to drink. The lecturer then proceeded to give a description, graphic and highly interesting, of his visit to Portland, and his experience there; and he mentioned en passant that the practice customary here and elsewhere of converting the steamers while alongside the wharf into common grogshops did not obtain there ; and no drinks were allowed on board. At Bangor, he learned that the police there were put to little trouble. He was told that the “ boys ” gave a little trouble sometimes ; but very often for a fortnight together they never had “ a case” of any kind whatever, vvhat would Inspector Atcheson think of that. (Laughter.) Surely this said something for the prohibitory law introduced into these States. In England no such desirable result had been obtained, although 400 Acts had been passed for the regulation of the liquor traffic. (Applause.) Here the lecturer spoke with biting sarcasm of the result of legislation in the direction of liquor traffic in Great Britain, where, said he, if anywhere, they had a right to look for perfection. He referred particularly to the city of Durham —a cathedral town, where in two hours, in one quarter of the town, he had counted 100 men uumistakeably drunk ; and his observation in another quarter of the same place had been attended with a like result. Was not this a magnificent evidence of the system for regulating the liquor traffic ? The lecturer then referred to the spread of the Maine Liquor Law into other States; in Canada they had passed a Local Option Bill; and in reference to this branch of his subject he quoted from papers. Of course the law might not be enforced ; but wherever it was enforced, there the result was found to be satisfactory. He then proceeded to speak of the operations in regard to the liquor traffic in New Zealand, with a view of showing that the law as it existed was not properly carried out, and he mentioned a case in which a policeman in a locality in the Wellington provincial district had been allowed to live for three years in a low publichouse, which he (Mr. Fox) had succeeded in causing to be swept away. We might, he said, have all the laws in the world on our statute book without effect, unless they were properly enforced. He then dwelt for a short time on the different phases of the temperance question. There was prohibition by voluntary action, in which case it was in the hands of the people to refuse to allow a license for a house in any particular district. People were apt to say that it we got rid of public-houses there would be sly-grog selling; but this argument had been proved to he without foundation by practical experience. He quoted from Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s little work on “ The Triumphs of Prohibition, exemplified in the experience of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and of Vineland, State of New Jersey, U.S. A.”“The Maine Liquor Law is a stringent Act, and it is carried out in parts of the New England States with the unflinching rigor of an Arctic frost. Not a public-house exists in all St. Johnsbury, nor can a mug of beer or glass of wine be purchased openly by a guest, to whom wine and beer are portions of his daily food, . , . We avoid such words as tavern and hotel, as too much savoring of the bad old times when every man might drink himself into a madhouse aud his children into a gaol. . . . No bar, no dramshop, no saloon defiles the place. Nor is there, I am told, a single gaming hell or house of ill repute. So far as meets the eye this boast is true. Once in my walks, I fancied there there might be an opening in the armor of these Good Templars. Turning down a foreign street, where, in spite of public opinion, Jacques is somewhat careless of his offence, and Pat is lazily tolerant of the cesspool at his doorstep, I read a notice calling to the passer-by to enter the smoking and sporting bazaar. Here surely there must lurk some spice of dissipation. On dropping down the steps, I find myself in a big empty room, the floor clean, the walls bright, with a small kiosk in one corner for the sale of cigars, at which a nice-looking matron waits for customers, who are slow to come. ‘They suffer you to sell tabacoo, Madam ?’ ‘ Yes, sir, for the present. Some are bent on putting down the sale like that of beer aud gin.’ . . .

Intoxicating drinks are classed with poisons ; but as poisons may be needed in a civilized country, under a scientific system of medicine, laudanum and arsenic are permitted to be sold in every civilized State. Such is here the case with brandy, beer, and wine. A public officer is appointed by public vote. The town lays in a stock of brandy, beer, and wine, which is carefully registered in books, and kept under lock and key ; and these poisons are doled out, at the discretion of this officer, in small quantities, very much as deadly nightshade and nux vomica are doled out by a London druggist.” Mr. Fox then proceeded to speak of other places in which the prohibitory law was in force—in the town of Shaftesbury, for instance, where the people had decided not to have a public-house, and as a consequence no police were wanted there. Speaking to the question from a local point of view, the lecturer referred to the Licensing Act of 1873, and explained that it had not worked satisfactorily, because it was left to the Government to declare the size and shape of the licensing district. He then (at the request of the Yen. Archdeacon Stock), referred to the Bill he proposed to introduce during the present session to amend the licensing laws of the colony, which Bill provided that two-thirds of the people in any district should have the power of refusing a license. He promised them he would do his best in the House to support the measure, and hoped to see it safely carried through. (Applause). Mr. J. Woodward moved that a hearty vote of thanks be accorded to the lecturer.

Seconded by Mr Holdsworth, and carried unanimously. The meeting then dispersed.