ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 57, 29 August 1911, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY.

INTERFERE? (Published by Arrangement). Temperance reformers of all styles— Good Templars to Prohibitionists—are often asked why they want to interfere with the drinking habits of the people. It is rather late in the day to make this enquiry. Centuries ago it was seen that evils resulted from drinking alcoholic beverages, and the demand was made of the legislators of the day that something should be done to prevent these evils resulting. It is to be remembered that the demand did not come from teetotallers, for there were none then as si body; it came from those who thought that strong drink was good for people in some way. Nevertheless, the attempt was made, in hundreds of laws and regulations, to protect the public from the manifest evil consequences, such as drunkenness, disease of body and mind, disturbances and riots, and the cost thereby entailed on the taxpayers. Then, again, no one now questions the right ,to interfere somewhere in the matter of drink; everyone wants protection from, the evils resulting therefrom, and the only question is how far should that protection extend? The Legislature might say in effect to the nation: "We will protect you up to a certain degree of restriction on the use of strong drink, and if these restrictions will not suffice, then we will give up the attempt, and you must be unprotected." When, however, we look at the present state of things, in our own country even, we see that enormous evils result from drink still—death, crime, drunkenness, cruelty to children, accidents, and other evils too numerous to mention. In the face of these things the country is quite entitled to say to the Legislature: "Make your restrictions and regulations sufficient to protect us from these evils." The only stopping place for the restriction is when the evils are got rid of. The only stopping place for sanitary regulations, against, say, bubonic plague, is where the evils are stamped out. The only logical stopping-place for the restriction of the drink, in the light of I modern experience and science, is total prohibition, which, when effected, would stamp out the evils resulting from drink. tions to this policy: ■ First, that prohibition does not secure this protection from., the resultant evils, in which case , the position i= hopeless, for all licensing systen have already failed. The second objection is that prohibition would institute greater evils than those it would remove, and this has never happened anywhere, in spite of all the talk about perjury, slander, law-breaking, etc. (See reports from all the partially prohibited districts in New Zealand),. The third objection might be that the liquor habit confers on society benefits and advantages so numerous that they outweigh all the evil that (and the evils are admitted by'all}',' and no one has yet said that there was more benefit than loss in the drinking customs.of the day. Professor At water, Who' is a tower of strength to the liquor men, | said: "The net result'of its, (alcohol) use is damage, not advantage..".', It is then surely time to. interfere, aiid with some greater effect than'any, interference hitherto attempted. But there are still some who do not like interference and call themselves, "or may be called, MORAL ..SUASIONISTS. They deprecate legal interference, they advocate education on the alcohol questions, and then persuasion which will lead to personal total abstinence, and then they say the thing is done. Yes; if they could persuade all men —wise or foolish —strong or weak —unselfish or selfish —to adopt that principle and to stand by it, of course the evils would disappear. But that cannot be done. Take the case of Ireland. In the second quarter of last century Father Mathew did his great moral suasion work in that country. He so far succeeded that distilleries and breweries were closed and serious crimes were reduced from 12,096 in 1837 to only 173 in 1.840. Yet since then Ireland has returned to her intoxicating drinks as formerly. What the reformers of that day did not see was that the changed and reformed habits of the people ought to be recorded and fixed by legislation. And it will ever J be so. The advance in public opinion on any point, if it be an advance, should be scaled and settled by legislation. Moral susasion may hope in time to .win the wise, the strong, the unselfish; hut it can never hold or protect the unwise (foolish?), the weak and the selfish. Only a wise law of absolute prohibition saves many a foolish, weak, selfish man now from theft and other serious crimes. The same applies to the remedy needed for the evils resulting from strong drink.