LICENSING AND TEMPERANCE IN SCANDINAVIA.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43103, 11 June 1907, Page 1

LICENSING AND TEMPERANCE IN SCANDINAVIA.

THE LATEST PANACEA'. By Robert E. Batty/ (Continued from last issue.) :! ||B A century and a half ago;® when a proposal, on the lines so .® dear to Mr Pratt, was made in; ® the House of Lords, the Bishop ,1 of Salisbury made a sarcastic® observation, which may be,com-® mended to the \ discoverer of the I last panajpea-; “ To prevent the|f| excessive use :of anything by.’|| allowing it to be soldjwithout {1 restraint is an"expedient which i| the wisdom .of no former age cl discovered.’* ■ I Has Mr Pratt ever "read the || lines : “ How oft the sight of means | to do ill deeds f Makes ill deeds done!’’ . y®® The provision of for excess is not the way dbjtl avoid excess, and it will always/i remain the duty of the State topi avoid avoidable and needles's J temptation, and to make it easy ® to do right and difficult to do;; wrong. / ;v Mr. Pratt might have spared vf 'the hackneyed jibe about thefl meaning of the word Temper-1 arice. Temperance means model’- / ation, he contends, ahdV the; j c< Temperance ” advocate in rev |

gard to beverages should be il a;| moderate drinker.” */f He gives much detail about/l the demoralised alised by drink ‘ he ought to;j| say—who drink naphtha, de- A naturalised and various vile concoctions. Are the people who abstain from these things “ intemperate,” and are those > alone who make a moderate dulgence in them entitled to call;|| themselves temperate? Temperance is the moderate graii- ; fication of a natural appetite. Is there a natural appetite beer even for light beer ? The /§ j famous Hobbes gave the class!-if cal definition of Temperance :• ,J “ Temperanc'e’is the habit by , which we abstain from all things || that lead to our destruction. || As for 'the com moil opinion that /§ virtue consisteth in mediocrity, and vice in extremes, I see no :jg ground for it.” The great,/§| American journalist who only U just missed becoming President ;/| of the United States of America, put the issue in a nutshell when / he said: “If what has been -jg said of the nature and essential properties of alcoholic liquors jg be correct, there can be no such thiug as a temperate or moderate use of them as beverages.”