TEMPERANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42756, 3 August 1905, Page 1

TEMPERANCE.

. ': Bt RkformsrO “ CORNERED!” “ Cornered,”but with its nature still unchanged. That is the| position, of the liquor traffic in New Zealand to-day. Long years of attempts to restrain ifc have not altered its nature one bit. If anything could have 1 made it cover, its fangs surely the knowledge that it is in a corner, and that upon its be- | haviour depends its very exist* | ence, would have done it.- 1 Yet look at its doings in our city, as | reported in another column. £ Five hundred and sixty persons | under the influence of liquor, | and 150 absolutely drunk, spew- ;> ed on to our streets by 37 hotels j in the space of one hour, and three or four out of every five of these were young men. ;l ,; r It has, probably, tried to reform ; it has certainly promised it would, but it is. just a wolf ; still, ugly and murderous as ever and now that the people have its in their power to destroy it, • no false sentiment must spare, it. Anyone who now retains the? least bit of belief that the drinlcß traffic can be restrained merits* either a medal or the cap.and I belt for optimism. : 19 A Bishop Potter recently as-l listed at the dedication of. aB ‘ : model ” liquor saloon in Newfl York city. He gave an address, fl and after pronouncing the place* open for business, those presen® joined in singing “ Praise God* from whom all Blessings Flow.”* “ Business ” was good from tile* start, and the newspapers report* that the “ blessings ” peculiar to* the business began to “ flow,’® with the usual pesult in drunk® enness. '4®

The drink traffic always in volves drunkenness, and it, it s< when bishops and deacons am assorted “ Christians ” engageii it, as well as at other times Auckland can supply an almol perfect illustration of the fac that even an estimable privat and public character does ri< qualify a brewer and wine an spirit merchant to carry on K business without the usual a companiment of drunkennee degradation, and death. Auc landers know the Upper Wiar< river’s awful story. The nature of the tfaffic is u changed and unchangeable. A tempts to regulate it are futi No promise of “control” is worth a momen thought. We should only time, and men are perishing, we care for our city, and ( city, and our country, there’ only one thing, for us to 4 The “No License ” weapon our hands. We must “ Shoo