A Shameful Story.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 201, 30 April 1887, Page 12

A Shameful Story.

TctK " Pall Maty. Gazette ' N recently interviewed Mr W. S. Came* M.P., who had been on a vis-jjfc to Egypt, and who made some vevelatio-ns with regard to the spread of drunken aess and immorality under British rule that 1 vo load with sur-. prise and sorrow. Writing on these revelations, Archdeacon Farrar writes :—": — " Surojy no Englishman co<fctd have read withoujb a bhioh of shame awl a hitter sense of indignation the eviclwico furnished by Mi 1 W. S. Caisie of the curse which we are causing to Egypt by drink and by the vic^s with ■\\ hiuh drink is always accompanied- The conscience af the nation seems to, be hopelessly torbid to our awful responsibility for wiongs which our -dunk trajrle has inflicted upon the helpless a.wd perishing races of mankind. r ill it not even now be stirred by hearing* of ' some 400 grog shops in Cairo, mostly with English t.igns,' and by the testimony that 'all the way up as far as Assouan, we have sown the country a\ ith gi'og shops, and are inoculating the country side with the vilest habits oi drunkenness ' ? Mr Gladstone was not guilty of the least exaggeration when in the House of Commons he endorsed the sentiment of Mr Charles Buxton that drink was the cause of evils worse, because more continuous, than those of the three great i historic scourges of war, famine and pestilence combined. ' That,' he said, 'is true, and it is the measure of our degradation.' j But the shameful story is not neAv. It is familiar to those who have striven to roufjQ the nation to a sense of its duty. Whftt we. are doing to-day in^ Egypt we are also doing, to-day, j,nu nav o been doing for years, in other lands, The Hindoos are beginning to cry oiil, ' Leave us to ourselves, or may God come to .our rescue, and preserve 180,000,000 of our men and women from the vice of intemperance !' Captain Burton deekues that if in Africa the slave export trade were revived in all its horrors, and rum and gunpowder were unknown, the country would quickly gain in happiness by the exchange. In America whole tribes of the Bedmen have been decimated or destroyed by brandy. Bishop Selwyn says that New Zealanders asked him how men professing to be Christians forced upon them intoxicating liquors, which were never wanted and never tasted till they came. Similar testimony comes to us from every quarter of the world, and here at our very doors drink daily causes the most unspeakable misery and the most execrable crimes. Yet our Legislature, under Liberal and Conservatives alike, con-. tents itself with passing one or two abstract resolutions ! But there are some among us who, believing in the message of the old Hebrew Prophets and marvelling at the apathy with which such crimes against humanity are regarded, have long heard a voice ringing in their ears, 'Shall i not visit for these things ? saith the Lord ; and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this V "