The teetotallers are not very logical people. At the conven-
tion of temperance representatives, held on Wednesday at Exeter Hall, Mr. Gustayson proposed that, the object of the party being the extinction of the liquor traffic, the only just, efficient, and permanent means of securing that object was total prohibition. This motion, which is not only logical, but right —for only the belief that drinking is wrong can justify its sup- pression—was lost ; while another motion, that every local die- trict should have power of total suppression, was carried by a large majority. The two votes amount to this, that right and wrong are dependent on the opinion of the parish, and that Parliament must allow in one county what it prohibits as wrong in another. That is Home-rule reduced to its ultimate, and even absurd form. The nation must have the right, from the necessity of the case, of saying that a particular article of diet is a poison, and if it thinks so, is bound to exercise that right ; but if it puts forward moral reasons, it cannot delegate that power. It might as well declare theft criminal in London, but innocent in Surrey.
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