REPLY TO “SPECTATOR.”

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 27, 30 September 1893, Page 7

REPLY TO “SPECTATOR.”

TO THE EHITOE. Sin, —I hope that “ Spectator ” ■will see that prohibition means prohibition, even when the law prohibiting is broken. If writers against temperance legislation would not indulge in such loose language, they would find less to say against it. It would be sufficient to say that “ ” letter against total prohibition is altogether “beside the mark, because nobody is asking for it. But he points out how several other laws have been transgressed in support of his idea that the prohibition of the drink traffic would fail in its object, and talks about making laws to prohibit innocent actions ! He instances smuggling under the laws of protection in Great Britain. But was it a righteous thing so to tax the people’s food, &c., as, in effect, to prohibit a foreign supply by a free exchange of goods, and leave the poor to starve ? Was there any wonder that, as he says, “ shopkeepers, country gentlemen, magistrates, and even ministers of religion, were in league with the smugglers ?” that “ the struggle was between Government officials on the one hand, and the nation on the other.” The evil was not in the law-breakers in that case, but in the lawmakers, -who were largely landlords, who made such laws in order to get high rents for their land. So in the case of Ireland, which he mentions. Have not the people there been struggling against the exaction of exorbitant rents, and against their huts being pulled down, their bits of furniture destroyed, and themselves turned on the highway regardless of the weather and their condition as regards clothing, health, and age, because they could not pay them, even with the assistance of their friends who had settled in foreign lands. "What could you expect but rebellion under sucli circumstances ? Are laws which allow such things proper ? “ Spectator ” is assuming that they are on the same level, morally, as one prohibiting the drink traffic. He will find it a “ matter of history ” that good and great men have allowed themselves to be burned at the stake sooner than submit to unjust laws. I must not intrude too much on your limited space, but, as readers will see, his other illustrations are just as inapt, unless, indeed, he could make out that prohibition of the drink traffic would be unjust, and for that reason unpopular. As to making laws for innocent actions, what must that be done at all for—either few or many ? He says that “ the ulimate sanction of law is force,” and, what may be, that “ the balance of force resides in the majority of the men of a nation.” But what matters that unless you can induce a sufficient number to join in rebellion to overpower the Government forces? It is the work of the Government to administer the law —by force when needed. And only in cases of widespread and persistent oppression will you find majorities joining in rebellion. You don’t find majorities joining in breaking prohibition laws where they are enacted, even in America. Mr Stringer’s report, even, does not make that out. “ Spectator ” allows too much drift to his imagination. Then he turns prophet, and says: “If total prohibition does become law in this colony for some year’s to come . , . it is foredoomed to failure, and those only will find their liberty curtailed whom conscience, with or without law, would have restrained from excess.” As to this, nobody is asking for total prohibition. What the people of any country should learn to do is to demand that their representatives should make laws in accordance with the Divine will. I read lately in an extract from “ Fools and the Man ” that “it is the business of the State to declare and maintain upon the earth the righteousness of God.” Perhaps “ Spectator ” will agree in that. And if he thinks prohibiting the drink traffic would not be declaring God’s righteousness, I will discuss that matter with him.—Yours, etc., PIEBEIAN.