TEMPERANCE AND LIBERALISM.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 213, 1 September 1893, Page 3

TEMPERANCE AND LIBERALISM.

Temperance advocates will not feel very gratified with the manner in which the present government has dealt with the liquor question. It was hoped thatjj a Liberal government would not hesitate to give to the people the right to speak for themselves on the liquor question, hut such a hope has been roughly shaken, and Liberals whose creed has been sufficiently genuine to stand the test when applied to the liquor question are beginning to doubt tho trustworthiness of a government which will refuse to give the control of beershops into the hands of the people. In Britain the Liberals have become allied with the Temperance party and recent divisions have shewn the perfect unanimity of the Liberal party on temperance questions. It is this alliance which has in a great measure given Mr Gladstone his present majority, and we venture to predict that unless Liberals in this country stand true to liberal principles on the Temperance question, they will fall from their present position and the Temperance party will become the true Liberals. Temperance advocates of any shade were not long since classed as ‘ fanatics,’ but now it is sought to set one portion of teetotallers against the other by classing those who desire to give the people a hold on the traffic, instead of allowing the traffic to prey upon the people, as ‘ extremists.’ This is a cunning device which will probably te successful in delaying the reforms sought for, but its success will be short-lived for right is might and must pre • vail. Although some teetotallers are very weak in their convictions, the very opposite is the case with a great many, and these will continue the struggle to a victorious end such as has been achieved in many other States. As an instance of the depth of conviction which same hold on this question we give the following, —The following cable message appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of July 26 : —“ Mr T. F. Victor Buxton, a member of the well-known firm of Traaman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co., brewers, Brick lane, Spitafields, is about to retii-e from the firm, the reason given for his re tirement being that he is a teetotaller. He forfeits £1,000,000 on retiring from the firm.” In commenting on the subject, the Herald says : —The teetotal member of a great London brewing firm, who, as our cablegram states, has renounce! his share in the business at the cost of a personal sacrifice of a million stei’ling, may be credited with all that is due to action based on grounds of conscience. He could not, we presume, dispose of his share, because that would be to make profit out of the accursed thing, so he simply abandons his partnership in the business. We cannot criticise action dictated by a conscientious scruple such as this But it is felt that considerations of this kind do not touch Mr Buxton’s spring of action in this matter. He has no care for results. He has only the feeling that he as a convinced total abstainer is morally prohibited from participating in the profits of a traffic which he holds to be wrong and injurious to the people. Such a sentiment and such action are on a level which criticism cannot reach. The result of Mr Buxton’s action is not to be sought in any diminution of the liquor manufacture due to his retirement, but in the high testimony of conscientious duty which he has thus publicly borne, and which must give a great moral stimulus to the labours of those who share in his opinions and are fellow-worker 6 in the same cause,”