Page:Prohibition by A.T. Galt.djvu/6

6 the object of which is to include every one who desires to see the use of, and the traffic, in intoxicating liqours banished from the country. As I understand it the object is to make the platform so broad that every one can put himself in line with it. Perhaps a good many of my friends here may be surprised to see me presiding at a temperance meeting (applause), but I hope as I grow older that I may grow wiser (loud cheers), and that, at any rate, in regard to any good object, I hope I am never too old to learn. (Hear, hear.) When the question has been put before me, and I have been told that I have a moral duty to perform, or can serve a moral purpose by becoming a member of a total abstinence society—and that is a question which I have revolved in my own mind very seriously for several years past—I have said this: I am perfectly willing at once to give up the use of intoxicating drinks if you will guarantee to me that it will do any good (hear, hear); if you will only guarantee that my doing so will be the means of preventing my friend from getting it, whether he likes it or not. That is the train of thought which has passed through my own mind, and, no doubt, through the minds of many other men like myself. The sacrifice of their own enjoyments, I have no doubt, many who do not belong to a temperance society will gladly make when they understand that in giving up that which they may not consider hurtful themselves, they really produce a good result to other individuals. (Hear, hear.) Now, I am bound to say—and I hope my friends from Montreal will not find fault with me for saying it—that I think the principles defined on the Dominion Alliance cards go a little further than they will carry everybody with them. In the remarks which fell from Mr. Dougall last night, which I think were exceedingly sensible, and they certainly commended themselves to my judgment, he spoke of the desirability of carrying everyone with them so far as they could, and gradually preparing for something better in the future. Now, if we examine this question of Intemperance I think that ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and all the ladies, will agree with this proposition: That the great and crying evils of Intemperance are rather to be traced to the use of ardent spirits than to the other fermented liquors. That is