PROHIBITION AND THE GOVERNMENT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2412, 15 October 1892, Page 2

PROHIBITION AND THE GOVERNMENT.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In your sub-leader in to-day’s issue you refer to the motion passed at the Alliance meeting on Monday night as being ill advised. I am inclined to think that, looking from the point of view of the proposer and seconder, it was well advised. It is a common practice now to have similar motions passed on every occasion that a few enthusiasts meet. The temperance enthusiast is sincere; but if any one allows enthusiasm to get the better of reason he is liable to be made a cat’s-paw of, and is often led to do what will defeat the object of his enthusiasm. I have a strong opinion that very few of the prominent leaders in this prohibition movement are sincere. They have an axe to grind, and want to gain cheap popularity and pass as philanthropists while they are making use of the unsophisticated enthusiasts to gain their own object. The motion under consideration is a fair sample of their plausible fallacies. How could anyone be so simple-minded as miss seeing the cloven foot in the allusion to the Legislative Council ? We all know what sort of genuine Liberals they are, and I beg to remind those who are disgusted with the present Government for what they have not done, in spite of the obstruction they have had to contend with, that the genuine Liberals who are in Opposition now have had the run of power in New Zealand for more than forty years. During their long term of power what did they do for the cause of temperance 1 Did they extend the franchise to women ? Did they not withhold the franchise from men as long as it could be withheld ? What have they done ? Show us one progressive measure those genuine Liberals have ever promoted. Of course those gentlemen who are sincerely disgusted with the Government never tell their dupes that it is Tories they refer to as genuine Liberals. The insinuation is that a Government can be got independent of either party. Allow me to tell those who are ready to be caught with any trap that is set in the name of temperance that statesmen are not as numerous as sparrows. There are only two breeds of them in the world—the Tory and the Liberal. There are many Tories yet, but Tory statesmen are almost extinct, and among the ever increasing number of Liberals Liberal statesmen are not very numerous. Liberal statesmen always have and always will foster and pass into law Liberal measures as fast as they ripen. But the statesman cannot afford to be an enthusiast, If he were an enthusiast he could jnot be a statesman. We have an illustration of what I mean in Sir George Grey and W. E. Gladstone. They are both orators of the first water. Sir George Grey is a political pioneer, an advanced political thinker, but also a political enthusiast, hence always opposed to the Government whether Liberal or Tory. W. E. Giadsone is not a Radical, he is not an advanced political thinker, but he is a Liberal statesman. He is rather slow to adopt new ideas and new measures, but when he adopts a measure it is never lost sight of till it has become law. Now with all the noise we hear about prohibition, which in proper phraseology means abolition is the abolition of liquor traffic—a ripe political question? Decidedly No. When it ripens it will be abolished by being made unlawful. Meantime intelligent true friends of the cause will not allow themselves to be made the tools of axe-grinders, who, because of their own insincerity, are over ready to accuse others with being insincere.—l am, &c., Anti-Humbug.