A STARTLING DOCTRINE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 76, 26 March 1900, Page 4

A STARTLING DOCTRINE.

DR. HOSKING'S METHOD OF ELEVATING THE MAORIS. ——— Rbv. Dr. Hosking is the latest convert tothedoubtful principle of selling strong prink indiscriminately to the Maoris. This is indeed a surprise. If we remember rightly, it is only a matter of a fe-w months since the Reverend Hosking was a Prohibitionist of a rabid type, who used to mount the town pump and deny the right of the white working man or any other man to have his glass of beer or tot of whiskey. True, there has been a general election since then, and the amiable Hosking has quarrelled with his billet under the Wesleyan Church, and now hangs out the shingle of a Fxee Methodist parson. But has he quarrelled with his principles as well as his creed ? Dr. Hosking admits, even in his pulpit appeal for the sale of liquor in the King Country, that "thenatives are degrading themselves by the use of d rink." " Some of the vilest stuff human beings can consume," he says, "is being dealt out in the whares and shanties of the settlements in that vast territory," And yet availing himself of the advantage of the pulpit, Dr. Hosking tells a thoughtful congregation that he means to lilt up his voice in the interests of a crushed and degraded people by advocating—what ? The opening of licensed houses for the sale j of strong drink to the Maoris. There is an old tradition amongst the natives themselves that the Gospel and the rum bottle travel together, and Dr. Ho,ski tig's precious deliverance from the Free Methodist pulpit suggests that he is faithful to the tradition. If the natives in the King Country are degrading themselves by the use of drink, how, in the name of all that is logicul will their condition be improved by the Hosking policy of " more drink." At the present time, grog is only sold on the sly, but his proposal is that it should be sold openly and freely, and he has the consummate ellrontery to stand up in a Christian pulpit and tell us that this indiscriminate sale of alcohol to the Maoris is going to lessen their degradation. Tommyrot! Liquor may or may not be a good thing in the hands of those who use it in moderation. Medical authorities are divided on this point. But no sane |man, whether he be medical authority, conscientious clergyman, or whisky distiller, would defend the sale of ; alcohol—good or bad—to untutoied savages with ungovernable appetites, who cannot exercise the power of selfrestraint. Dr. Hosking must have quarrelled very seriously with the Wesleyans and Prohibitionists when he accepts the responsibility of such a preposterous and inhuman doctrine, and dares to give it utterance from the pulpit of a Christian Church. Probably this is what he calls doing his Master's work.—Observer.