The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 16. THE FUTURE OF LIQUOR.
ll is notieealde that the friends of [>roliiliition in Npw Zealand have lately been saying little, lint it may lie presumed that tliey are gathering forte for a liereo onslaught oil the same old dragon when tiie 'next (,'eneral J'iledion.s loom. Outsiders, not; vitally imere.-ted in tile abolition or retention of the age-old trallie, however, are showm;,- sonre alertness. I'or in.stanee. the 'trades and l.ahor t'o:iferenee sitting at Dunedin lately parsed I a resolution ailinning tb< justiee of
bringing the hotels under the Shops and Olliccs Act. An interesting eoinincntary on the Uquor business is found in the alliliid" of the peo])le of \'ietoria. 'l'll-.' uiisuecss of ilie "reformers" who sought to get into Parliament on the temperance ticket, may explain the dor riant alt ill:,le of the "'reforincis'' in New
/■■aland. An excess of zeal is often more fatal than a ton meagre quaiitiiv of Hivirtu,-, and it is a remarkable fact ihat where tin' people have a certain line of cmnlnc! dr-num-d into Heir cars for a long time with painful iieri.lion tlicv develop a dMasle for the gentlemen who ilo the pcialion. A Biblc-lu-SelmoU partv will biilerlv liejit for the pvivilcov which is (he reason of its ex-
istence, and suddenly drop the scheme in into. A noted temperance reformer gifted orntorically ran ami has made a whole audience stand up and promise to "sign the pledge." The oinofonal side of man is sometimes easily stirred. We had evidence, of this in "revivals 7 that shook Waihi in the North a while ago, and in the way of religious emotion
that jhuried everything, temporarily, in the Principality of Wales eighteen months ago. Where are now those revivals and revivabsis? No man's nature is changed for ever by sudden emotionalism, and all men are hard thinkers when undisturbed by passing waves of mental exaltation. To get lasting ivMlits in a campaign against intemperance, immorality or any other vice, emot:onalism must be discarded for quiet and calm reasoning. It is no use for any reformers to warts angry hands towards Hie evil that is done by the traffic. The ii'allie and the people who run it. in their turn get angry and you reform Ho one by making thai one angry. That is principally why the Victorian electors
threw out tile angry reformers, who, 1 while they may have been sincere ' enough merely stirred up the passions i they desired to kill. Tile lighting e.i- i paciiy is not the soie property of reformers. It belongs in an equal degree i to the class whom the reformers fight. The future' of the i'quor trade ill New . Zealand depends upon the results of the dispassionate consideration of the great section of the community and to some extent upon the zeal the prohibitionists suppress. The. latter must love the heei'-sodden sinner and not blame him for a fault h,' often cannot help. They must give the iiipior-driukcr an iu!eipiate physical recompense for 'the loss he sutlers if liquor is taken away, and treat him as one; who requires all the' help that can lie given him. The pro hiiliitionisls should'also not forget that (here are men as good as they ill 'Vnc ranks of the publicans, men who are conscientious in the observation of the law. even as (here are publicans who bring discredit on their houses, and who should not lie given licenses to bold And all, '-the trade" and the prohilvtionists, should never forget the Biblical injunction about charily, ancr if they observe that quality in their relations, methods and advocacy, there will lie no need to worn- about (he future of liquor and the regulation of "the trade.''
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Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 16 April 1907, Page 2
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620The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 16. THE FUTURE OF LIQUOR. Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 16 April 1907, Page 2
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