The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1919. PROHIBITION

New Zealand Tablet, 10 April 1919, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1919. PROHIBITION

»E are on the eve of the poll. In the past we have done our duty in putting before lf(v our readers the dangers of Prohibition. . We have been attacked for doing what We e deved to be a matter of obligation. Sjlfi Fut we have never heard one reason alleged to make us swerve from our, opinion that Prohibition would be a curse for this Dominion and a danger to our religion. The time has come to say the last word on the subject, and we are ready to say it as fearlessly as we have always spoken in the past when there was need for plain speaking. Now, however, we are glad that a more powerful voice than ours is heard, that all that we have said and written on the subject, nay, all that we felt about it as Catholics, is gathered up and presented in a masterly manner by the highest Catholic authority in the Dominion, our revered and venerable Metropolitan, Archbishop Redwood. His Grace tells us all in eloquent and authoritative words that Prohibition is 1. Contrary to Scripture and to the example of Christ; ’ 2. Contrary to logic and. common sense; 3. Fatal to liberty and a real tyranny; 4. An extreme that would cause disorder, hypocrisy, lawlessness, and moral ruin; 5. Calculated to abolish the Ten Commandments; 6. A menace to our Holy Religion, an insult . an outrage, an indignity, a prying interference with our altars and our priests; and that the Catholic who would vote for Prohibition in New Zealand to-day is true neither to his common sense nor his love of freedom, nor his loyalty to his Holy Religion. Here then are his Grace’s words. Take them to heart. Remember that they are the wise expression of the mind of our Highest Catholic Authority in New Zealand on the issue before us this week: Archbishop’s House, Wellington, March 25, 1919. Rev. Dear Father,The clergy and people of this archdiocese and of the other* dioceses in New Zealand naturally , look to their Metropolitan for right guidance on the matter of Prohibition National Prohibition — with which this Dominion is threatened. I hope such a calamity will never befall it. For what is the altogether untenable position of the Prohibition advocates ? It is this: if they argue that wine (alcoholic drinks) is an evil in itself, then absolute Prohibition, even for Sacramental purposes, should emphatically follow; but this argument transfers responsibility from the agent to the instrument, and so destroys morality; moreover, it is contrary to ‘ Scripture and the emphatic teaching

and example of Christ, who used wine Himself, and in instituting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, made it part of the essential matter. ; If they argue that wine, or alcoholic drink, is not an evil in itself, then regulation of its traffic is* surely the moral course to adopt* But if Prohibition is urged on account of the mis- _ use which some make of it, then, to be morally consistent, the same people should demand that, because the sexual instinct is abused by some to the extreme of impurity, therefore all union of the sexes should be forbidden. On the same principle printing, the theatre, dancing, should be prohibited. All this would, of course, be absurd, and is almost blasphemy against marriage, which is a holy ordinance of God and is honored by all men. The position of the Prohibitionist is accordingly against logic and common sense. Reform is needednot Prohibitionreform wise and moderate and patient in the light of experience, education, and true morality ; in the interests of the great body of the public, and especially of moderate men who constitute the majority of the people. To brand New Zealanders, who are generally a sober community, as a drink-sodden people, demanding drastic legislation, is a vile and monstrous calumny. The whole scheme of National Prohibition is a great step backward ) it would be an odious and inquisitorial tyranny, foreign to the basic principle and spirit of British Law. As the Archbishops, last October, aptly stated in their important pronouncement, “We view with misgiving and alarm the crude proposals of those Prohibitionists' who demand drastic legislation would be an unwarrantable infringement on the reasonable liberty of the mass of the people ; which would most probably be inefficacious for the purpose in view, and which, in the end, would produce more evil than it would remove.” Prohibition is indeed fatal to Liberty, because it involves a serious outrage against the natural rights and liberties of individuals and contemptuously disregards the claims of dissenting minorities. It is also fatal to Temperance, though not a few sophistically confound Temperance with Prohibition. Temperance is a growth, like all moral laws, in the individual and the community. Prohibition proposes to establish Temperance according to the Criminal Code. Temperance is positive and appeals to the sense of self-control, to the reason and conscience. Prohibition is negative, and appeals to the sense of fear, to pains and penalties, and utterly ignores man’s habits and education. Temperance is the development of man’s righteousness and selfcontrol. Prohibition is the reduction of man to a position of compulsory national total abstinence by the Criminal Law: Temperance is the heritage and blessing of a free people. Prohibition is the yoke which a country constructs for itself when it confesses its inability to self-control, and from which it will take long years to free itself: Temperance is the badge of selfrespect and orderliness. Prohibition is the symbol for hypocrisy and deception. All the secret encouragement to sly drinking, the utter lack of control, the absence of all authority, the vile decoctions served, are sure to generate a low moral atmosphere of great mischief. And such places of sly drinking greatly appeal to the young. Once let a young man become contaminated by the moral tone of the “sly grogs,” he will be damaged morally, if not utterly ruined. Prohibition will undoubtedly generate lawlessness. Its extreme character, its far-reaching measures, its enormous penalties, stamp it as a grinding despotism—the fruitful parent of disorder. , Prohibition is as despotic as any law of the worst despot. It utterly disregards and tramples under foot the undoubted rights of minorities, whom it grossly insults by the way it flouts their wishes and destroys their privileges. The minority under it would obey, or suffer outrageous penalties. Wherever it prevails it ®is monstrous in every way and grossly insulting to the intelligence of the large minority. If it is carried in New Zealand we may expect that shortly the land will be filled with dens, all of which will be schools of hypocrisy, evasion, lawlessness, and deception. One extreme begets another. Prohibition would plunge us

into a course of folly bringing turmoil into the politics ot the country, perjury and evasion into the courts; and deception into the people. Let it not be argued that sly grog” would become an impossibility when throughout the whole Dominion there would be no liquor to be procured. And what could prevent the manufacture of sly grog in the country and its introduction by a Widespread system of smuggling? But in any case this plea is no excuse for its inherent and rampant tyranny. ‘ v • r In a recent publication regarded as authoritative by the No-License Party these words occur : “I recollect on one occasion, in conversation, one of the brewers said to a Prohibitionist, * I hate the drunkard as much as you,’ The Prohibitionist replied : ‘ That remark defines the difference between us. You hate the drunkard, I. hate the drunkard-maker.’ ” It is this very externation in teaching which is sure to add to the list of the drunken. Nay, it destroys all morality. This teaching would render morality impossible. Anarchy and law” lessness would be rampant. “I hate the drunkardmaker.” In terms of logic, he hates the hotelkeeper who sells wine, the barman who serves it, the commercial- traveller who represents wholesale houses which stock wine. A step further: he would hate the winegrower, the laborer in the vineyard, and the carter who carries the wine, and so on. In large drapery establishments certain persons practise shop-lifting. Prohibitionist teaching would exonerate them and blame the drapers. “I hate not the thief, but the thiefmaker.” Such a doctrine would abolish the Ten Commandments. To shift the responsibility from the man who drinks to excess to other persons is to encourage sympathy with the drunken, and still more is this wrought by absolutely stopping the supply, not only to the few lawless, but to the whole community. This remedy is fatal to morals. It is fatal to set up a compulsory and ascetic total abstinence society for the people and to enforce its rules by a drastic Criminal Code. A true educational development undoubtedly means that the whole of man’s attributes are to be brought into true harmony. Here lies the worth of the individual and the true greatness" of the State. A mere negation such as Prohibition would never accomplish this ; in fact, a greater violation of its principles can hardly be conceived. This National Prohibition craze is mainly the work of a handful of fanatics, while some honest people, even some Catholics, owing to what they have suffered from drunken lathers or mothers, husbands or wives, relatives or friends, put sentiment before reason and yield to the temptation of resorting to a remedy worse than the disease. But let Catholics and all good Christians be timely warned. We know that there are in the ranks of the Prohibitionists, though not, perhaps, amongst the present leaders in this country, bitter enemies of the Catholic Church and of the Mass, There is a leal danger that these people would later on try here, as they have done in at least one important State of America, to render the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass impossible. Listen to what one of their leaders in the United States has said. Sidney Catts, Governor of the State of Florida, at the annual convention of the Anti-Saloon League held in Washington as recently as December, 1917, made the following declaration: “Liquor may not be imported into the State of Florida (after I get through with the Prohibition measure and after the Bill has been passed by the people) for any purpose whatsoever, and the man who needs liquor fqV his religion had better prepare to take his religion out of Florida.” ■ ■ & But I shall be told that we- run • no- such danger in New Zealand, as we have the assurance of the leaders of the No-License League, together with the Government, that satisfactory regulations will be made to allow wine to be procured for Sacramental purposes. I am not at all convinced that these regulations will be satisfactory. First of all, what are they? Nobody has seen them, and they are not to be made, I understand, until after the poll is taken. Is it reasonable to ask Catholics to. vote for National Prohibition on the

strength of regulations not. yet made, and about which we know nothingwhether they will be. satisfactory or otherwise ? • . x ' But even though the present Prohibition leaders and the present Government may be perfectly sincere in their avowed purpose to make regulations that will be entirely satisfactory, what guarantee have we that in a few years, once National Prohibition is the law of the land, other Prohibition leader's and another Governmenton the ground, say, that the exemptions are being abused—may not insert an amendment in the Act doing away with all exemptions, even for the Mass, or recasting the regulations in such fashion as to practically prevent the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice? We have had too much experience of recent “rush” legislation on the part of our Parliament not to fear similar “rush” legislation in regard to Sacramental wine, espcdaily, I repeat, as the No-License movement numbers amongst its most prominent advocates men who publicly denounce the Mass as “an unchristian superstition, ’ and make no secret of . their determination, if they had the power, to prevent its celebration in New Zealand. I consider, therefore, that I would lie failing in my duty did I not warn our people of the dangerous possibilities that are before them. Is the great Catholic Church, in this pretended free laud, to depend for the exercise of a natural and divine right on any fallible and fallacious Government or set of politicians Such a thing is an insult, an outrage, and an indignity. It implies a prying and inquisitorial interference with every altar and every priest in the Dominion. I call, therefore, on all Catholics in the Dominion to vote dead against National Prohibition, as they value common sense, liberty, and the sacred claims of their Holy Faith. Let them band with the best men in the Dominion, the majority ol good and moderate men, to stamp out this noxious tiling, National Prohibition, for ever. Let such inquisitorial and grinding tyranny never curse this free land. The Catholic who votes for National Prohibition in the present condition of this Dominion—whatever other exceptional case might be conceived in other countries to make Prohibition" tolerable —is true neither to his common sense nor his love of freedom, nor his loyalty to his Holy Religion. Let him cast his vote patriotically and religiously against it, in this and every other election. Let him not become the slave of a false system inspired by narrowmindedness and fanaticism. I remain, Rev. Dear Father, Yours sincerely in Christ, ❖ Francis Redwood, S.M., Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan