The Oamaru Mail. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 6 September 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1880.

Sir W. Fox has found another excuse for reading a teetotal lecture to the people of the Colony. This lecture has not been delivered from the piatfornx—it is not signalised by any rhetorical effort —ifc is no set lecture at all. It is &r more practical, and is in the form of a simple motion. 'Not all the eloquence of the New Zealand Gougli could have elicited so great attention. Sir William Fpx has preached temperance from the platform till his hair has grown white. He never misses an opportunity of deliverin" an exhortation on the same subject in the House, There is not a question into which temperance cannot be weaved—not an evil that cannot be traced to the drinking enstoms of the people. When Sir William rises in the House to speak eveiy member expects him to make some reference to teetotalism before he sits down. Therefore nobody was surprised when he, in the expiring hours of the session, moved "That it is highly expedient that the sale of intoxicating liquors on the premises of the House should be discontinued; and that this motion be brought under the notice of the House Committee early next session, with | a view- of having the same abolished." i There is at least one man in the Colony jwho does not regret the unseemly Parliamentary, or, rather, im-Parlia-mentary, proceedings in which Jlr. Pyke played the "title role." The orgy was nothing more than the rising to the surface of a sore that had been rankling in the vitals of our social system. At least, this is what Sir William would say. To him Bellamy's is the cause of all the evils ,of corrupt government from which the Colony is suffering. Nobody would sympathise with him in such an opinion before the late Parliamentary exhibition —he hopes that perhaj>s they will do so now. As he passes the door of the apartment in which intoxicating liquors are sold within the precincts of the House, he holds his breath for fear of imbibing the contaminating gases that emanate

i therefrom, and he breathes a silent prayer for the deluded ones who there rally round Bacchus. Tins is all very good. We are of those who think - that the world woidd be infinitely happier without intoxicating liquors. We will go even further, and express an opinion that, unless in exceptional cases, people are all the better for a strict observance of total abstinence' principles. But there are others who do not think with lis, or who, at all events, do not elect to deprive themselves of what is, in their estimation, a harmless enjoyment of the "good creatures that God has given them." This is the obstruction that stands in the -way of the free course of the principles of teetotalism. People will use their own discretion. Interfere with their free will and you transform passive into active enemies. Having discovered that moral suasion has failed to teetotalise the world as speedily as your dreams had planned, assert that you will endeavor to use force, and a nest of hornets will be raised up that will obstruct you in the operations

of the system of moral suasion, to which you must return, unless you abandon all hope. Let physiology be taught in our schools. Let the effects of alcohol on the human system be inculcated, and if it is the poison that Dr. Richardson and his disciples say it is, it will, in time, be avoided as such. If temperance reformers could he induced to thus strike at the root of the evil, they would enlist a larger army of gympathisers. There are few parents who are not anxious that their children should avoid Jntoxicating liquors; and those who nave experienced the horrors

I of over-indulgenge exhibit the greatest anxiety in this respect. If our children, actuated by an intelligent knowledge of the effects of drink, grew up to be sober fathers and mothers, the death blow -would be given to intemperance. More than that, the decrepitude that has resulted from it would gradually disappear. But this is I only to be accomplished in those ways we have denoted- Abolishing the facilities I for obtaining intoxicating liquors, even if that were possible, would not have the desired effect. To place in the hands of the people the power to refuse licenses is a perfectly sound principle. I-ocal option, applied to new houses, interferes as little as possible with tihe liberty of the subject, whilst it aims at abating what is deemed to be a nuisance by a large ; section of the public—a pfethora : of public-houses. But it wffl not / make- people teetotallers any more i than the abolition of the sale of intoxx- < eating liquors at wjll present j

members of Parliament from getting their glass of wine, beer, or spirits. It is nonsense to say that more liquor is drunk by members of Parliament because it can be procured "with ease. If members were compelled, by the abolition of liquors in Bellamy's, to visit the hotel opposite, they would drink just as much, if not more. Again, we say that the extremes to which temperance advocates of the Fox stamp go are most damaging to the cause they profess to love. The attributing of the disturbance in the House the other morning to the eiTccts of diink is calculated to create a distaste for red-hot temperance --advocates and an admirable cause,, whilst a Parliament, the chosen representatives of the people —a body whose sobriety has been exemplary—has been stigmatised. Such a means of scoring a point against the drinking customs of society is illjudged and thoughtless, if not worse. Bellamy's is a well-conducted jnstitiu tion, in which Sir W. Fox himself might occasionally be seen without dissipating that brilliant and sacx'ed halo of in which he " lives, moves, and has his being.' 7 In Bellamy's, we believe, there are more teetotal than intoxicating drinks sold at 6d per drink—not given away at the expense of the country, as even some journalists would have their readers to believe. It is an insult to members of Parliament to insinuate that they sometimes so far forget themselves that it is necessary to abolish Bellamy's, and we think that the House wi}l take this view if Sir William Fox shoidd bring forward his motion next session.