Temperance Column.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 189, 12 April 1902, Page 3

Temperance Column.

[ADTEUTISE3IEKT.J

Mr Woolley on his Return to New Zealand.

Writing in The New Voice. Jan. 30t,h i Mr Woolley say? ”My first greeting to readers of Th- Now Voice (after hk return home) must be farewell. To write it is far nioru serious to me than it? importance to the readers would suggest, because when ibis position fell tu me I hoped it would be possible to quit the platform and devote the remnant of my life to ht-rary labours in the interest of ihe Great Reform ; jqd my recent trip abroad was made in that view in s-arch of rest add health aud broader knowledge... I saw nothing tihat even for an instant tempted me to change my mind as to my own pursuits or weakened my affection for my own country; but I was charmed with the people we met in New Zealand and Australia, and I was gladdened to the cockles of my heart with the upward trend of their politics and the immediate possibility of bringing on a battle royal there betwean the Church and the saloon.

Long before we sailed from New Zealand, the proposition came to me to return there for the campaign of 1902 ; and I answered instantly and positively that it was out of the question. But the plan gained headway in spite of me, and on the eve of our departure I agreed not to say no until upon investigation of my own affairs I found myself obliged to stay at home

In Italy I received the information that the Free Church ministers of New Zealand, practically unanimously together with ahy Church of England clergymen, were going to urge me to return there ; and as I write this such an invitation is before me, The annual meeting of The Now Voice Company has been held, and it appears that in every department the business is healthful, and even more prosperous, and suggestive of none but the ever-present anxiety to reach more readers, and to do more work and bettor. Meanwhile, in spite of the home-sickness • even now ohitching at my Adam’s apple, my desire increases to see the Church in a head-on collision with the liquor traffic and be in the wreck of one or the other. » So it is settled that Mrs Woolley and I will sail early in May for the swxetest, fairest, strongest little country in the world, and the prettiest, fairest fight since God said, “ Let there be light.”