The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Monday, May 25, 1891. THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 612, 25 May 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Monday, May 25, 1891. THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

One would have but a feeble comprehension of the signs of the times if he did not acknowledge that the Temperance cause is making great headwayin New Zealand. The better class of publican need find little in this to cause him to be disconcerted, but the day of the drinking-shop is numbered. The Temperance advocate is learning to make use of means by which truths are impressed on the minds of the people. Their reverses even are serving them a good turn, and their recent experience at Auckland should be a valuable lesson. The Star draws a moral from the elections, and gives the Prohibitionists much food for reflection. Even in places regarded as their stronghold the Prohibitionists were ignominiously defeatedThe reformers were content to talk and not work; there was an incessant round of meetings, with professional talkers and amateur talkers. “We ask the leaders of the temperance organisations,” says the Star, “ what is gained by the flying visits of men who are paid immense sums to deliver a few addresses which mainly consist of humorous anecdotes in addition to romantic and often vulgar and improbable events in their own history ? It is stated that a sum amounting to nearly a thousand pounds has been paid to a speaker for a few weeks’ mission in the colonies. We heard of one instance where a travelling temperance advocate threatened to ' smash the mission ’ unless the sum ef /150 was forthcoming for a few nights’ lectures. In another iustance a lecturer who had received a similar sum for a few evenings’ duty was spending the night at one of our country towns, and when requested by the local minister to give a temperance address to the people who could be collected, refused to open his mouth unless the fee of five pounds was forthcoming. His services had therefore to be dispensed with.” Our contemporary goes on to point out that nothing is so calculated to injure a society which claims to occupy a high moral platform as the suspicion that it is traded upon by adventurers for the most sordid purposes ; and thus follows up the subject :— “With regard to supplying what is an acknowledged want in the community, the total abstainers as a party are equally to blame. Our hotels, under the present system, may be defective, but what have teetotallers done to supply the defect? Temperance hotels are comparatively unknown. Where they do exist they are generally conspicuous chiefly for poverty, hunger, and dirt. This is so notorious that many total abstainers choose the licensed hotel in preference. If half the money lavished in one professional babbler after another had been spent in providing suitable accommodation, the total abstinence party might have had a first-class temperance hotel of their own in the city, and thus proved to the public they were willing to support their principles with their money. Instead, of this they leave this weapon in the hands of their opponents, and fancy they are doing their duty by engaging in a contest which costs them nothing, but which forces the brewers and publicans to lavish large sums of money.” The lesson conveyed by the contest in Auckland is plain; the Temperance require to set to work temperately, and scout anything in the nature of spasmodic effort, when that effort is likely to make a rebound against themselves. The knocking down and shattering process is not sufficient to ensure permanent success. There should also be constructive ability shown. At present some of the so called victories that have been achieved, and which will be greatly boasted of by well-paid agents in the course of their wishy-washy addresses, are nothing more than fighting the business battle of some brewer or spirit merchant who finds himself unequal to cope with the strength of Certain of his competitors in the trade.