Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1881-09-10
THE LIQUOR QUESTION.

OF the enormity of the evils of alcoholism
as they actually exist, and the vital bearing of
the temperance question upon the condition of
society comparatively few are yet aware, else
there would be terrible earnestness of united
endeavor by the best classes of all people to
rid the world of its greatest curse, drink.
But tardy as reform in this matter has been.
the promise is already in bud, and the pros
pective full blown flower is with certainty ao.
cumnlating sap to its future perfection. 1t
has been said that, ga practice often lasts for
long time after the theory which inspired it
has lost its hold on the belief of mankind +"
and, it might also be said with equal truth, as
amply exemplifed in human history, that the
abrogation of a belief must sooner or later be
followed by the downfall of that to which it
has given sustenance.
In regard to the question of drink, although
there are yet many who hold to the belief that
use without abuse is possible, and in accord
with the teachings of morality and religion,
yet the number Is by no means insignificant of
those ready to forsake and who have forsaken
the uncertainty of purely metaphysical specu-
III.
ductivo philosophy in this and allied matters,
And it is hopeful indeed to know for GER
tainty that many minds of the first order, re-
presenting politics, science and religion, are
arranging themselves in opposition to the
long dominant and fatal belief of the ability of
man, to hold in subjection by moral effort, his
appetite for spirituous liquors. While by a
purely mental process of introspection,
VIC may be able topropound an imagined phil
osophy in justification of such a belief, it can
hold against the argument afforded by indnc
tive reasoning only in minds which by nature
prefer error to truth.
Statistics varied in their character and ex-
tending in many directions go to prove beyond
the shadow of doubt, vast accumulation of
misery, want and premature death as conse-
quential upon the custom of drinking endorsed
by conventional rules and legal enactments,
which are again based upon the idea of free
VIII and moral responsibility in the individual.
While statistics and scientific investigation go
also to establish the fact that the aggregate Of
miseries dependent upon the habit of social
drinking is no wise adequately offset by ac-
cruing benefits. Even as a medicine the use
OF alcohol is becoming restricted to narrow
er sphere, and many diseases once thought to
DO incurable without it's al :, now progress to-
ward recovery at an accelerated pace with
water only as beverage. Perhaps we are
not wrong in saying that the tendency of mo-
dern medicine is to eventually. exclude it al
together from the mafsria pe.iic1. and confius
its uses to the druggists compounding- room,
ana iaboratory-not upon moral or religious
grounds but upon those of scientific expert
ence.
Az social custom, drinking can at most be
regarded only as a luxury, aud certainly un-
necessary to any one in health, ard il is an
expensive luxury in more ways than one. 1t
causes more disease in the healthy than it
cures in the sick; with the laborer il prevents
more work than il helps him perform; and it
even fails to perform its promise, to tho de-