[To THE ED/TOR OF THE " 8EECTATOR."] SIN, — The correspondence in
the Spectator under this heading has been a revelation to me. Always disliking strong drink and dreading the influence that it might exert upon the moral and material aspects of life in Great Britain, I have wondered at the failure of the temperance agencies effectively to resist it. After reading tho letters of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Rogers I wonder no more. Widely apart as these gentlemen are in argumentative ability, they are. spiritually together, and exhilit a self-righteousness and complacency, a lack of sympathy wit It other temperaments, and a. moral daniiification which enelude them from understanding the great mass of their fellowcountrymen. That working men and women should be repelled by their propaganda seems to me natural and inevitable.
The merit of your article, is that they outline a policy on which men who love temperance as much as Mr. Wilson and Mr. Rogers, but who also believe in and trust their countrymen, can agree. The articles convince me completely. The root of corruption in the Drink Trade is not drink itself, as the Prohibitionists contend, but the pressure exerted on the citizen to take it. Here I am at one with Mr. Bromley. Thousands of public-houses in Great Britain are merely drinking dens, where to ask for food or non-intoxicating drink is to invite ridicule and hostility. Must it not be plain even to Mr. Wilson and Mr. Rogers that to get rid of these places and the motive that inspires them of selling the greatest possible quantity of intoxicants is the real path to reform? As now carried on the Drink Trade must necessarily promote drinking and drunkenness. Under State control the Trade could, and I am sure would, be used to promote restraint and to encourage sobriety and self-control among the citizens.—I am, Sir, &c., Seymour House, Compton Street, W.C. PHILLIP MORGAN.
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