Temperance Items.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 160, 8 June 1901, Page 3

Temperance Items.

{ADVERTISEMENT.]

(Published by arrangement.)

Extracts from the Report of the Conimittee of Enquiry on Temperance Reform. Set up on November 16th, 1897, at the First Session of the Fourteenth Synod of the Diocese of Waiapu (Napier), Now Zealand. Presented in October, 1898. members: The Very Rev. the Dean of Waiapu, Chairman; Tee Rev. Canon Webb; The Rev. T. J. Wiles, Hon Seo.; Colonel W. Wood ; John Thornton, Esq.} C. H. Edwards, Esq.

(2). The second subject of enquiry was “Intemperai’co in its Relation to Grime,” which was carefully considered, with the help of the Brewers’ Almanac and Wine and Spirit Trade Annual foe 1896, the Rcp6rt of the Committee of the Lower House of Convocation, letters received from Poorhouso Guardians and others in England, and the statements of English and Colonial judges, politicians and clergymen. (b‘. INTEMPERANCE AND ORIStB.

There can be no reasonable doubt that a very large proportion of crime in all civilised lands is due to intemperance. Your committee are persuaded that the solution of the problem of intemperance will go far towards the solution of the problem of crime. Judges, magistrates and prison officials generally attribute a very high proportion of crime to. intemperance in drink. Two-thirds—-the estimates of Lord Chief Justice Baron Kelly and Mr Justice Richmond—is an estimate rather below that of mosv Jus ! ices who have Announced or recorded their opinions For the information of the Committee of the Lower House of Convocatiftn, Lord Chief Justice Sir W. Bovill stated that, “ Amongst a large class of our population intemperance in early life is the direct and immediate cause of every kind of immorality, profligacy and vice, and soon- leads to the commission of crime.”* From Manchester; Canon Hicks writes to your committee: “We have in England a ‘National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.’ It does a wonderful work. It has branches all over the country.: We have a vigorous branch in Manchester and district. We find certainly more than half of the cases of cruelty to children and cases of neglect due to drink alohe. We have not made out the exact percentage. Probably it would be 75 par cant, or more. This is the experience of the whole country.” All our investigations certainly have made it evident that intemperance is the chief factor in the creation of crime. {To be continued,)