A Clergyman on Prohibition "Prohibition means one law for the rich and another for the poor," said the Rev. Basil S. Bourchier in a sermon preached by him last month at St. Judge-on-the-Hill, London. The sermon was one seales being delivered by him "Difficult, problems," and on this occasion he took as his text "Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus," his subject being prohibi-jon, Mr. Bourchier said that in his passion for true temperance he yielded to no person in the world. "But temperance," he went on, "is a much-abused word. No two words could be more contradictory than prohibition and temperance. They are just as far apart as slavery and liberty. In fact, that is exactly the difference between them. Temperance is the judicious exercise of free will, and is a virtuous act; No paren. can be made virtuous by an ct of Parliament.
"Prohibition may have a place in this world, but it cannot be in any land that professes Christianity, or boasts of liberty. I am_ all for temperance, which says' 'Do this,' 'Be a man,' but I am all against prohibition, which says, 'Do not,' 'Be a slave.'
He did not think local option, which commended itself to maty temperance advocates, was the practical solution of the drink problem. It was claimed that it would regulate the liquor traffic according to the will of the people, but he doubted this. ~''To begin with," he said, "such an Act would. constitute a very serious infringement of individual liberty, for it would confer on one body the power to regulate and restrict the habits of others—the effect of which could only be disastrous, Passing as we now are through these most dangerous and difficult days of reconstruction, when the maximum of production is vital, I can conceive of nothing so calculated to divide and embitter the great mass of our workers as any such attempt to interfere with their lawful rights. This is the high-road to Bolshevism and anarchy. Neither would local option ever really check intemperance, since it' would be inoperative in the very place where excess abounds.
"We want not only much better and brighter public-houses, buf much better stuff to be consumed in them. We neither ask nor expect that pre-war unlimited drinking facilities but we do demand uniformity of hours for opening and closing."
Concluding, Mr. Bourchier ad advocated restrictions on the sale of spirits, educational work on alcohol," and the infliction of-a severe penal. ty upon those who drank to excess and upon those who served drunken people. "It is the dity of all who believe in the blessings of true temperance," he added, '"'as against the curse of prohibition, to support those engaged, in the coming fight for freedom, and to join the army of common sense which is arrayed against the forces of fanaticism,"'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.