for the baby which forbids him to be removed from the cradle, allows him to be fed only at stated periods, and generally disregards his infantile wails and protests. The writer has noticed that while mothers obey in the case of the first child, their common sense usually comes to the rescue of the second child, and disregards the faddists' theories in obedience to the dictates of Mother Nature, which seems to have the better of the argument, even in the growing opinion of these same specialists. At present there is a widespread belief in the domain of medicine that all diseases may be remedied by pulling the patients' teeth; that, also, has received a few strong shocks. Why may not this doctrine of the harmful effects of liquor be in the same class of fads, and why is he so sure that it is among the great truths that have been discovered and established by scientific research in recent years, and which were still either ignored or doubted or disbelieved because they ran counter to the drinking prejudices of our social habits and traditions'? Can there be a slight taint of the Manichean atmosphere lurking even in his clear brain? As a matter of fact, it is impossible for an unbiassed observer to escape from the conclusion that the total Prohibition movement is permeated and motived by the conviction that fermented drink is an evil, not a good. We pass on now to the method of the Prohibitionists. In this they take a lesson from Mohammed. Mohammedanism has the unenviable distinction of being the connecting link, evolutionally and historically, in this meddlesome trinity, Manichean, Mohammedan, and Methodist. needs but to mention the fact-for it requires no proofthat Mohammedanism stands condemned by all Christianity, by western civilization, and by its own history of degeneracy and decay. From Mohammedanism our present-day Prohibitionists have added to their store, the idea of governmental and forcible suppression of wine and its use. They are the finished product of Manichee and Mohammedan.

One

This leads the writer to his instinctive antipathy for Prohibition-a reason shared by almost all Catholics. It is the light in which this condemnation of liquor places the Mass. My opponent vigorously protests against any attempt by the State to interfere in a matter of religious worship which falls wholly and exclusively within the

competence of the Church.' He even elaborates the point, giving it a whole paragraph and terming it an ‘unwarrantable trespass of the State on a domain which is beyond its jurisdiction.' But though he may convince Prohibitionists that it is best to keep their hands off the Mass, for reasons of prudence, with what argument will he meet their murmurs that if the Church sanctions what is ethically wrong, it should be coerced by the law, like any other wrongdoer? If the thing is bad in itself-and this, the writer maintains, is at the bottom of all the present Prohibition agitation--then the Church which uses its position to protect iniquity falls within the condemnation of every good man, whether he be able or not to carry that condemnation into effect.

And now, the writer presents an assertion which seems to him to be self-evident to any Catholic. He will take a leaf from his opponent's book and italicize: There is something radically wrong about any movement which makes it criminal to do outside the Church door what the Lord God has commanded to be done within, as a supreme remembrance of Him. And those who oppose the Mass have but two reasons. He may take either horn of the dilemma. Either they consider liquor to be evil in itself, or they are moved by a diabolic hatred of the Mass. In both cases, a stigma is cast by their action on Jesus Christ.

The writer now approaches the central contention of his opponent's article. ('Why not have approached it long ago,' says my opponent. You would have found me saying indirectly that liquor is a good.' But the defence submits that what an advocate says indirectly in a short proposition, and what he insinuates throughout a long article are very_different things. Moreover, what the animus of total Prohibition is, apart from any individual presentation of it, is something which cannot be judged by one man's remarks.) 'It is the function of the State,' he says, 'to promote the main good and social well-being of the community. If, in order to accomplish this, the State finds it necessary to deprive the individual citizens of all access to the enjoyment of certain temporal or material goods or conveniences which are in themselves lawful but not indispensable, the State has the moral power to do so.' This, he says, 'is an ethical principle or thesis which will scarcely be disputed.' As Shakespeare says, 'That would be scanned,'

together with the next proposition equally emphatic, which completes my opponent's argument. (The writer quotes it now to put the whole in one view before his readers.) It is also italicized. Even if such a measure be not the only possible means of promoting the common good-of remedying grave and widespread evils-nevertheless, if it is believed by the majority of the community to be the most efficient means, and as such is demanded by them, then, too, the State has the moral power to enforce the measure and to impose on the individual citizens the resulting inconvenience of so far restricting personal liberty.'

May we call attention to the fact before beginning any discussion, that for the phrase 'deprive the individual citizens of all access to,' etc., which is euphemistic for suppress,' in the first proposition, the advocate substitutes in the second proposition, restricting personal liberty,' as if restriction and suppression were equivalent terms. course they are not, and he knows it.

Of

For a while, the italicized exactness of these two propositions, their stern challenge of invulnerability, almost overwhelmed the writer. Add to this the assertion of the one who formulated them-that they were 'beyond all dispute,' and one has a situation to make the boldest shrink. However, the writer learned long ago from Cardinal Newman that an abstract or notional proposition is, at best, but probable, hanging in the air from a multitude of assumptions, any one of which, if proved untrue, invalidates it; moreover, that its best test is to reduce it to the concrete and real. Let us test out this Hindenburg line. There occurs to the writer's mind the proposed law in one of the western States, giving prison doctors the right to render impotent certain male prisoners. Our advocate's first proposition makes the law good beyond question. Take even the proposed laws of Euthanasia, i.e., giving doctors the right to put out of misery hopeless cases of disease. Of course our advocate will object that life is more than 'a lawful convenience.' It is indispensable.' But who is to say so in the case of the hopelessly sick? If the French judge of far renown declared 'je ne vois pas la necessitè' to the prisoner, who maintained 'il faut vivre,' why may not 'the majority of the community to whom all power is given in the second proposition, decide that the sick man's necessity to live is merely a foolish

prejudice in favour of a useless thing, just as the Prohibitionists have decided about liquor? But these things are against the moral law! someone will say. There is nothing said about the moral law in these Hindenburg propositions; nay, even before the writer finishes, he will try to show that the propositions run run counter to a great moral law. But let us imagine some more concrete

cases.

Let us suppose that the State finds that too many pedestrians are injured by automobiles on the public streets. It, therefore, deprives pedestrians of the right to walk in public and compels them to use some other means of conveyance. Again, let us suppose that the State is agreed that the long hair of women is a menace to health by reason of its uncleanness, and by law compels all women to cut their hair short, as the writer believes has been done with school children in England. Let us suppose, again, that the State, following the advice of doctors, concludes that it would be better for the health of the community to wear wool both in summer and in winter, and passes a law making it compulsory to so so. All this falls within the scope of his notional proposition,' when reduced to the concrete. But he may say this is foolishness. We simply quote in answer to him his further proposition, in his own words, beyond all dispute': 'If it is believed by a majority of the community to be the most effective means and as such is demanded by them, then, too, the State has the right to enforce the measure and to impose on the individual citizens the resulting inconvenience, of so far restricting personal liberty.'

So that if these propositions be correct as they stand, there is absolutely no limit which may be set for the State in suppressing the personal liberties of its citizens; and this, it seems to the writer, opens up the real defect in these principles. There are two!

The remark of an old priest put him on the track of one, and his limited personal intelligence has already pointed out the other. The old priest (a Pole, I believe, from whom such a remark comes pregnant with its full meaning), in a diocesan conference in Baltimore, said, Maximum bonum, libertas-- Liberty is the greatest common good.' The religious is told that he makes his great sacrifice, in voluntarily giving up his liberty. Some eager, but

foolish, Prohibitionist would interpose here: "That is exactly the sacrifice we ask men to make.' Not at all! You don't ask; you force! Men don't sacrifice; they are sacrificed. But to proceed.

My opponent puts the common good' over against and beyond personal liberty. On the contrary, personal liberty is the greatest common good. The writer would not be a demagogue, but he is perfectly sure that if he appeared on the hustings in Ireland, or elsewhere, at present, with this proposition on his lips, the cheering that greeted it would rend the heavens. Any common good, therefore, which limits personal liberty must be carefully weighed in the scales against the liberty restricted, and it must be proven to be of such importance that the restriction is justified. Mark the use of restriction' as opposed to suppression of personal liberty, which my opponent wishes to skim over but which is a most important distinction. (The law which regulates the liquor traffic by license,' he declares, already deprives me of my liberty to manufacture and sell alcoholic drinks. As between the two laws [the license law and total Prohibition] it is a question of degree.' This is simply untrue. One restricts the right to drink, and the other suppresses. There is an essential difference.) Any law which suppresses personal liberty suppresses the greatest common good, preferring a lesser good in its place. It is for this reason that few laws attempt to suppress personal liberty, contenting themselves with restricting it. For example, the drastic law against spitting on the streets, in the cars, or in public places, in force in the City of New York, still leaves men the right to spit, if they wish, in their handkerchiefs. The Sullivan law in force in the same city, against the possession of weapons, whether at home or abroad, sins by this total suppression of a personal liberty, and as such, so far as the writer knows, is quietly disregarded.

The writer's first proposition is, then, that laws for the common good, as all laws are supposed to be, may restrict the use of any particular good, but may not suppress the use. Furthermore, there must be some personal liberty secured or augmented, to compensate the personal liberty which is restricted, through the same law which restricts, and the comparative value of the two must be