Temperance Column.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 207, 24 May 1902, Page 4

Temperance Column.

fADVBKTtSESIEST.] s

(Published by arrangement). TilK LIQOOIt TAINT IN NEW ZEALAND JDUKNALI6M. ;i

We make no apology for reverting to the subject of the newspaper treatment of tho sited ring of Vir John G. Woolley. The opportunity of forcing home to the understanding of the general public the knowledge of the extent to which liquordom influences tho press of the colony is one wh ch chonld be taken fail advan'age of.

There was nothii g surprising in the fact that our leading New Zealand journals should give publicity to the letter of J. K. Stewart; it was probably “by arrangement,” and in any case sen ational copy, but that a journal such as the Otago Daily Times, one of, if not the best of New Zealand dailies, should accept as fact the extraordinary stateincuts contained therein and straightway condemn Mr Woolley upon this unsupported statement of a stranger and a boasted renegade from the temperance party, shows that the influence of liquor is greater thau the claims of fair p!«y or justice. There is no excuse for this attitude of the Otago Daily Times. Surely che oft boasted spirit of British fair play called for an appeal to the body respon* sible for Air Woolley’s New Zealand tour—the New Zealand Alliance—as to ,he truth of these allegations. Would it not strike the average editor that a file of such a paper as the New Voice would be in the possession of the Alliance ? Upon any other question a reporter would have been sent to the fountain head for infoimation and pains taken to secure an expression of opinion from li.ho;;e brsi calculated to .knc". But 's ! was a i 'TiouC-’K . | i: this tvcal-Hirv.t yl the subject u» »ot m-tficient cvidciu- - A the liquor pnll

c£ our newspapers, they itewl'doubly condemned when v/o turn to the. question of the colonial republican leaning and note the assumed ignorance of editors as to its existence. However much we may regret it, thero is no more patent fact than that there has for long been an undercurrent of republicanism in the Australian colonies.

There is published in them a journal which claims an enormous circulation over the whole of Australia. Its circular tion in New Zealand justifies a special New Zealand issue. It. is found among all classes; high and low, rich or poor all read the Sydney Bulletin, a journal republican to its imprint and boastfully so,. We knew that very many of its readers took it seriously and remember hearing a representative Australian speak in Waimale of a definite Republican party in Australia. Are our editors unaware of the, existence of the Sydney Bulletin and of. its policy and of the acceptance it has found ?

1 Nonsense! They chose to ignore the fact in order to hurl £contumelious ; stone at a man who dared U» stand for righteousness, and was a power. So much is the republican spirit shown in Australia that it forces itself upon the. notice of those least expected to tee it,., and so must be strongly evident to a citizen of a great republic, as witness the following cable THE ROYAL TOUR. —- CANON DALTON’S IMPRESSIONS ALLEGED REPUBLICAN ABPIBA-, ; TIONS. London, May 14. Canon Dalton, who as chaplain accompanied the Prince- and Princess of Wales > on their recent colonial tour, read an interesting paper before the Royal Colonial Institute, embodying his impressions' of the tour. , . . Se : noted the - existence of a strong under*. , current of republican aspiration in, Victoria and New South Wales, though local statesmen discouraged iC

That this cable, published in the ; columns which had assailed Mr Woolley* for noting the same thing, brought out no expression of regret for the treatment f ; meted out to him makes farther proof of ■ the subordination of justice' to', tfae.j interests of thi Liquor Party by the ,3 majority of our newspapeis. Let thisj be remembered by newspaper readers | when next they see the No License Party , -5 or any ifiember of it in editorial columns* 4