THE BOMBARDMENT OPENS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 30, 29 July 1911, Page 6

THE BOMBARDMENT OPENS

MISS LYLIE GRIMLEY, A WORKER.

Miss Lylie Grimley is a quiet, unassuming woman. Silie is not of that masculine type of so-called reformers who break windows and ape a "mannish" style in their work. A woman of pleas- ' ing and alert manner, a charming conversationalist, a close student of social reform who has passed a searching examination upon the subject of the influence of alcohol upon the home system, an ardent temperance worker, the accredited messenger of tie Grand Lodge of England, and a veritable mine of information upon the whole subject »f licensing reform, Miss Grimley seems peculiarly qualified for the task she has undertaken —that of assisting in the moulding of public opinion in New Zealand on the question of No-License,, so' that the temperance party may prevail at the triennial poll in November next.Engaged for this lecturing work by thai Order of Good' Templars in New Zealand, she landed in the Dominion from England about a month ago, in time to attend the No-License Convention in Wellington. Since she has worked in the Nelson and districts, and was atao one of the speakers at a united temperance meeting in Wellington. Her engagement includes a- month's lecturing i»ur in Taranaki, and she arrived in New Plymouth on Thursday night, being met by a large gathering of temperance workers at the Hygienic Tea-Rooms. Yesterday a Daily News representative. had an interesting conversation with her upon temperance matters, and a resume of her remarks is contained in the following article.

Miss Grimley said that she had had eight years' work in England in the interests of Good Temp Vary, and liad long wished for an opportunity to visit this Dominion. She had hoped to come out here three years ago, but the opportunity did not present itself. Her own friends in the temperance field at Home would haVe been very glad, the pressman gathered, for her to have remained there for a while longer, but she wanted' to help in New Zealand, to gain a firsthand knowledge of what was being done in this young country which was admittedly in the van with its methods for stamping out the 'dHnk evil, so she 'canie out, remarking that there might be no need for a. poll on the question three years hence—the wish, no doubt, being father to the thought. Having had experience of the evil results of drink in the large centres of' population at Home, she was anxious to see the effect of New Zealand's advanced system. In England, temperance \w\- was largely the repairing of the res-Its of the drink traffic. Here the people were given the power to strike right at the cause of the trouble.

Asked for her opinion as to the reason for the greater advance in temperance work in New Zealand, Miss Grimley said she concluded that; at was due to the fact that New Zealand'was still a young country, and the evil ~as; h ot so deeply rooted. Then, again, the Dominion had not the tied house system to combat in Uid same measure as existed in the Old Land. In England very often a license was granted in a district in direct opposition -to the wishes of the people, of that part. In her own part of the country quite recently a grocer's license was granted hy the" magistrate in tho face of a petition by seven-eighths of the people against 'it. These houses were supposed to be lor the convenience of the people. In that ease, why should they be forced on a community which declared by such a majority that thev could get along very nicely 'without the "convenience?" It appeared that the public really bad no say in the matter. Miss Grimley remarked upon the fact 1 that a license granted in this way, to a hotel in a district where ~the majority of the people were against it, was sold the very next day for £5000!, Talking of the'present-day attitude of medical science towards 'the,,, use of alcohol, Miss Grimley said that in her own town of Leicester the borough hospital was in charge of "'Dr. Millard, who was a firm believer in the value of total abstinence, and who carried liis belief into practice in the working of the institution, No alcoholic liquor had been used there at all for six years past, and upwards of 800 cases of disease were treated there annually. In the first year of the teetotal regime the results were such—a reduction of 25 per cent, in the average death rate—that there is no talk of secession. This Dr. Millard, who is the health officer, has placards in the streets, and it is no uncommon sight to see groups of workme'n standing in front of these, discussing and-digest-ing the statements he makes concerning the deteriorating effect of even the moderate use of alcohol upon the human body. Good Templary is verv strong in that town/with its fourteen lodges. ] Miss Grimley could give instance after instance of the degradation of individuals and families due to drink. Two youn" men from the neighborhood of Leicester', when visited by the clergyman in the cells_ in which thev were awaiting the execution of the ileath penalty, asked him to convey this message: "Tell the young men of Silc.bv noveAo have anything to do with the drink, for that was what brought us here." These two lads had teen members of a Sunday School not long before, and were the" sons of respected parents. But drink, led to poaching, and one night thev shot la policeman. To a house which 'she knew well in Suffolk there came one dav a woman begging,,.a shilling. She got it, and turned into the nearest nubiic-hou.se', where the money went in whisky. That woman was the wife of a doctor, separated from him on account of this habit. The woman .from whom the shilling was terrowed, and who was a temperance advocate in comfortable circumstances, had once been in service in the lieggarwoman's family! But what need to multiply them. The slums were full of men who had missed their opportunities through drink—ministers, doctors, lawyers, and so on—side by side with the hundreds of men who had never known better, who had no other idea of pleasure than that which they sought to derive from spending their earnings in drink. She recalled a midnight procession and meeting in teeds, and the big gathering of men and women under tho influence of drink, who sang the simple Sabbath school hymns in such a manner a.s to betray a one-time familiarity with them. Sixteen pledges were secured that night, and some .joined the lodge. But i what a fight for the man or woman who wanted to turn over a new leaf. Public- | houses were plentiful in the slum districts, and the plentitude of the licensed houses brought these people there, for by their influence the rental values decreased to such an extent as to make the district the home of the poor. Tho thought had struck her since coming to this country, '-How much better it would be for them if thev could be ta.ken right away from their misery and wretchedness and squaior, away from <h e neighborhood of the public-house, away out into the sunshine, such as was the lot of the worker in New Zealand'" This led the visitor to remark that the conditions of the working people in New Zealand were much iri'advance of those in Britain. She was glad to see .for instance, that 'bottle licenses, had 1 been abolished in the Dominion. These bottle, licenses, and particularly the [grocers' licenses, were a great hindrance to temperance work at Home, and offered n. «rcat temptation to women, who whilst not wiMmg to go to a publichouse for liquor, had no qualms about obtaining it at the grocer's. Miss (km-

I lay said that in Australia she had noticed the wine and whisky on sale amongst the groceries. Then U»e aous(ing of the people, eve.y man being able, !< apparently, to obtain a house on a little piece of ground, instead of being cooped up iir a yard with a iot of other people, tended to .sobriety, for the cultivation of | that little patch of ground was some--1 thing for the man t t o interest himself I in. The hours of labor, and the labor conditions generally, were all in favor of the colonials. In London she bad known a woman employed by a dressmaking firm starting out at 7.30 a.m. and reaching home at 9 p.m. daily, for a wage of £1 a week. She died of consumption at the age of 34, and no wonder! It was bed to work, and from work to bed with these factory gifls. They were too tired for pleasure or recreation when work was done!

But even in the poorest districts at Home enormous sums were spent in drink. The people would go without decent clothes to their l>aeks or boots on their feet so long as they could get drink. Some of them, of, course, knew no better, for they had not had opportunity. Another thing in which Now* Zealand was fortunate was that Sunday .trading was illegal. At ITome Hie hoMs opened from noon to 2 p.m. and fi to 10 p.m. on Sundays, and it was dreadful to see the numbers of yornisr people streaming in and out. There had been miles and miles of petitions before ille House of Com'mons for the abolition of Sunday trading, but until the last Parliament there had always been a too great preponderance iof Commons interested in the trade. I The proportion of temperance members | was increasing, and the temperance societies hoped scon to sccurp this reform.

Coming back to New Zealand, Miss Orimley said the people were to be congratulated upon having secured the right bv legislation to vote out this drink evil. They could get right at the root of the trouble, and, a« far as she could see, there was a growing feeling, even amongst people who were not teetotallers., that the drink waa costing too much, draining too much out of the people, not only pecuniarily, but in damaging their health, ruining home life, and blasting the prospects and the hopes of many. For that reason tbey were going to help the No-l/icense cause. She had noticed the inefficiency of the prohibition order, having in Blenheim amd Nelson come across cases of people who, though prohibited, still managed to procure ■ liquor, and in excess. It seempd that it was impossible, so long as the sale of liquor continued, to -keep these people from it, and the only thing renin 'nin? was to remove the temptation fvr "i them.