PROHIBITION RALLY.

Shannon News, 15 February 1924, Page 3

PROHIBITION RALLY.

Mii GRIN STEAD AT SHANNON. A special address was delivered in the Summon Methodist Churcn on I Sunday by me. Rev. Herbert Grinstead, Divisional Secretary 01 tide Proliibiton ! Party,

Mr Grinsftead, iu ,shaking oil 1, 'John, 3, 5 and 8, "Stressed the purpose 1 for winch the, Church had been broI'ught into existence. Pre-eminently ns work was the salvation 01 then, but as .Christian Ch.urq.hes they had a further work to do and that was to break down the forces of evil and oppression, whether the oppression canib irom tne organised liquor traffic or from other coulees. As churches they must be free from political partisanship but they ctjuld never free themselves irom their social reponsihilities. Le~t the inevitable co,ns;equencies of the licensed liquor traffic in our midst

be faithfully considered and there was only one attitude for the Christian man to take up. It was not a question as to whether it was right or wrong to drink a .glass of alcoholic liquor. The question was far bigger than that. It was whether the liquor traffic, judged by its record, should be allowed to exist. What was its record? It took 2000 of our boys every year, filled' their minds and hearts with impujrijty', broke down tlieir manhood and made them unfit to fight the battle of life. A church winning a thousand lads for their Sunday School would have lost 800 to the Liquor Trafflo. Mr Grinstead quoted medical evidence showing that multitudes of children were born “damaged” simply as a result of the. drinking of their parents or relatives. Time and again the inspectors for the S.P.C.C. had placed it on record that the two vices responsible for neglect and cruelty to little children- were drunkenness and gambling. One Inspector, reporting, said: “85 cases have come under my notice during the last six

months, in which 243 children were concerned; 185 were neglected and starved; 39 ill-treated and exposed to the elements; 4 abandoned, 3 indecently assaulted and 3 compelled to sleep with drunken- parents.” In the whole of the above cases drink was at the bottom of the suffering. If it was. not the Church’s duty to prevent this sort of thing, in the name of God whose duty was it? The .organised liquor forces had always been an enemy''to the Church of God and righteousness at home and abroad. Whilst life, churches wiepe sacrificing, their best men and women for the heathen fields of the world that the people might (enjoy the blessings that had come from Christianity. The brewers of Australia solemnly sat in Council j and after discussing; the fields of the j world that were closing down upon | them, looked across to the 600 milions of China and India, and said: “These are fields for us to exploit.” To make 50 million drunkards in India was nothing to them if only they could make money, but it should be something to every right-thinking > man and woman, and the speaker said he was convinced that when men really understood, they would say, “The Trade that brings so much in its train of evil and misery cannot any longer be tolerated.” Some folk said it was impossible for the Prohibitionists ever to win, but if they would just remember that in 1894, .out of a population of 200,000. only 48,000 voted Hor Ncj-lfcense, and then remember that out of a population in 1923 of 1,300,000, 300,000 or about half of the voters, had voted for the total abolition of the traffic, they would never talk about never winning. But whether the Prohibition party won to-day or whether they won ini' twenty years the fight would go on for the suppression of the liquor traffic, its restriction in every way and at last its total abolition.

At the conclusion of Mr Grinstead’s address, am offering was taken up for the funds of the N.Z. Alliance, there being a liberal response.