MAINE AND LIQUOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3350, 17 October 1911, Page 5

MAINE AND LIQUOR.

REPEAL OF PROHIBITION.

AN OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. There seems to have been some doubt as to the true position in Maine, and conflictbry reports have been received from both the parties interested. The following cable has been received from the United Press Association, which supplies the world’s news to the whole of the papers in Australia and New Zealand. This cable may he relied upon as official, accurate, and conclusive:— (United Press Association —Copyright.) NEW YORK, Oct. 6. The State of Maine has repealed prohibition by a small majority. The issue was for a long time in doubt. Apropos of the above cablegram it might be obseved that religious and public opinion in the State of Maine has for many years been gradually veering to, the conviction that prohibition is alike fallacious and futile. At first peope fondly imagined that prohibition would bring in the millennium, and the clergy of Maine believed that no-license and prohibition would be an aid to church-going and develop loftier religious ideals; they accordingly invoked “tho beggarly elements of the law,” and after many years discovered their mistake. That Alethodist preacher, the Rev. C. S.' Gumming, declared, as for back as 1909, that there were seventy towns in Alamo in which no religious service was held. The Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., writing to the “Andover Review” more recently, stated tliat there were ninety-five towns where no religious service of any kind was held. The Rev. A. H. Wright, pastor of St. Lawrence Street Congregational Church Portland, in a recent sermon, said: “Tho condition of things here is simply amazing to all honest, unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens. Liquorselling is a crime in this State in the eyes of the civil law ; liquor-sellers are criminals. Yet here in our Christian city, governed by Christian men, we are told that no fewer than 300 places are open and in full operation for the sale of intoxicants.” Is it any wonder then that “all honest, unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens” of Alaine should revolt against a condition of affairs that sanctions the continuance of 300 sly-grog shops in a city of 40,000 people ? And, remember, for years past tlie sly grog-vendor lias voted with the fanatical, prohibitionist against the repeal of the prohibitory law ! Thus it appeare that no-license and prohibition have destroyed in Alaine all reverence for religion, all respect for civil law, and thrown the prohibitionist and tlie sly-grog seller into the same camp.” Is it not matter for congratulation tliat at last a majority of citizens of Maine have revolted against this continued outrage upon common decency ? Yet some good, well-intentioned, but misguided people in New Zealand would have us believe, notwithstanding tlie unimpeachable testimony of the veracious witnesses quoted, and the fact that Alaine has now virtually declared for licensing, that no-license and prohibition —local’ and national—would in New Zealand constitute our highest good. It is all a delusion. Alaine, after fifty years of iniquity and backsliding under no-license, 'has repented; and, like the prodigal, Alaine may now be said to have come to hereelf —turned over a new leaf. The experience of Alaine under no-license and prohibition ought to be a warning to all no-license and prohibition advocates in this Dominion. Surely we are better as we are with one well-regulated, properly-kept hotel under license than with three despicable sly grog-shops under prohibition —tlie churches empty, and “right-mind-ed clergymen” deploring, like the clergy of Alaine, the moral and religious degeneracy of the community under nolicense. That is why Alaine has revolted against a system that was degrading to the people and demoralising the whole of their social, political, and religious 'relationship. And the experience of Alaine is one to be avoided by the people of New Zealand.*