PROHIBITION STALWARTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43214, 13 August 1907, Page 1

PROHIBITION STALWARTS.

GENERAL NEAL DOW.

It was during this interregnum' that Neal Dow paid his FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND, on the invitation of the Executive of the United Kingdom Alliance, which owed its being to the reports reaching this country as to the beneficent operation of the Maine law. The visit was timely, also, in other respects, for on April 11th a short and almost obscure paragraph appeared in “ The Weekly Record of the Temperance Movement ’ ’ whioh raised, a greater storm on land than Neal Dow encountered on his ocean: voyage. The paragraph consisted of a few lines written . confidentially by Mr J. B. dough to a friend, stating in effect that the Temperance cause in America was in a very dw. pressed state, and the Maine law was ‘ a dead letter everywhere.’ This passage was most unfoiv* tunately cited in “ The Weekly Record,’’ and was eagerly seized upon by the enemies of. the Temperance Reform, and by them widely circulated, many public houses showing large placards bearing the statement —itself a great exaggeration, written in a fit of depression, never designed for publication. , Not only, however, at the time did it give great joy to the enemy, but it was followed by other mistakes, the cause of much division among the Temperance reformers of this country. On his landing at Liver- _ pool, April 20th, Neal Dowwas confronted with the “dead letter ” fallacy, to whioh he gav<* denial, followed by a correct representation of the American Temperance situation.-

THE PROHIBITION". CHAMPION IN 1857.

When Neal Dow and his ; English friends had shaken : hands allround, they saw in him a man who had recently completed his 53rd year, rather ' under than above middle height his features expressive and complexion ruddy, with a free and rapid enunciation, a man forceful and eager, to trust and to follow; to be dreaded as a foe, and loved as a friend. He had a great public reception in Manchester on April 23rd, in the Old Free Trade Hall,, which had rung with the appeals of. Free Trade orators, and was now responding to.the appeals of a noble New Englander, that Old England should do her duty by , getting rid of the one traffic that was oursing her and her kinsfolk throughout the" world. The Alliance had arranged for ti e holding in Manchester of a Ministerial Conference on the Liquor Traffic (June 9th-llth), and the powerful address by ■ Neal Dow may have assisted in passing the resolution which declared the .liquor traffic to be the greatest external obstacle to the progress of the Gospel, and deserving of “ suppression by the power of the national will through the form of a legislative enactment.” It was not till the Alliance Council of that year, 1857, that it was decided to agitate for a legislative en - actment giving localities the j power of local Prohibition. During his stay,, which terminated ! October, Neal Dow addressed I crowded meetings in the largest halls of the places visited., Some gatherings were m the oped air, one of winch, in Cumberland, ! was said to have been composed of 12,000 persons, I (To be-continued.)