THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1912. TEMPERANCE REFORM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10650, 5 June 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1912. TEMPERANCE REFORM.

While we, in New Zealand, are considering' whether the only remedy for the drink evil is to root it out entirely, our relatives in the Motherland are discussing the- question, of whether the disease df intemperance cannot be 'cured by less drastic .and more whotefeome means'. The London Times., in a recent issue, said:—"The moral •forces of the community are .slowly working againcit alcoholic excess. Of course, no one denies thai there', is •sbill .far too much drunkenness •amongst us, but it does nlot follow that repression is the ibest way to diminish it. In this connection we would invite attention to a very suggestive article on 'The True Lines of Temperance Reform,' contributed: by Mr F. E. Smith to the current issue of The 'Nineteenth Century and After. It is, in our judgment, not a little' significant that a leading member df' the Unionist Party should break loose, as 'Mi J Smith does, from the old lines of controversy and recommend a new departure in. temperance reform. Mr 'Smith holds that ifi'om the standpoint of sobriety in drink our licensing system, sind the whole policy underlying 'dt„ liave singularly failed. According 'to him, the true .policy is not to abol'ish the public-house, bxft to reform, improve, and civilise it. to make it a place of public refreshment and entertainment to which no. man need be ashamed to resort on occasion, and even to take his wife and children. !"The public house is a social -necessity. It is and has long been, not only the | place of refreshment for iflie wayfarer, I but the combined club, cellar, and I dining room of the working olaisses. ... There should therefore be no question of abolishing the public|'house. Our sofa aim ishcuild be to transform it in accordance with our hast practicable ideals.' These views are not mew in 'themselves. What is n'ew in. them is the fact thait they are «ow; advanced by a public man in the ♦influential position) of Mr Smith. Very similar views were propounded ! a few years ago .'by Mr Edwin A. •Pratt, described by one of hk critics as 'the most skilful of all pro-liquor

apologists' in a pamphlet, entitled 'The Policy of Licensing Justices..' This I 'pamphlet was very fiercely attacked ■by IMr Robert Batty ia a eouiiiterblast J •published by the United Kingdom Alliance, and it 'was die.ranun.ced as a mere 'brief for tlie Ibrewer.' We are iirib 'here concerned with the polemics of the controversy between the liquor "irade on tlu- one hand and itei assailants on the other. It suffice® bo point out that Mr 1»\ R. Sniit'h is no ".pro-liquor apologist,' unless, indeed, every one who hoick that mere aibsti:: cure is i:n.t true temperance, that a very largo consumption of liquor 'n the aggregate ie consistent with strict sobriety in every one of its centum ore,, and that ■pul-'.l.ic-'houses might he moralised and civilised without reducing their numbers., and, indeed, without necessarily reducing the omoun 1 - of Ijiquor consumed in them, is to be regarded as a pro-liquor apologist. Is it necessary that a public-house should 'be a ipTaee and a source of; drunkenness ? Is there any reason, ip the nature of the case why it should not be imade a place of (refreshment and enttertiairrment, to which a!ll classes migjlit resort withbut losing caste or self-re-spect, and in; which a drunken man. 'of any class might tin time ibe expected (to !becom<e as rare and unwelcome an apparition as he would 'be in any respectable London, club ? These are the ■kind of question's propounded by Mr ISmrJth for consideration. We should •hesitate to give a decisive answer to ihem, nor nre we concerned to espouse all the views advanced by him. 'But we would, at any rat*, plead for ■an unprejudiced consideration of lrJs I .-main thesis."