What is Our Prime Duty?

The question we have now to consider is What is our duty to this our land of New Zealand? We are living in a world where there must be a continual struggle if man is to maintain his position and make any progress. We have many enemies to fight; we must keep our banner of liberty always flying. There is often a continual struggle by coteries of men to get the control of our government. Some people want to dominate their fellow-men, and if any party dominates our institutions, then liberty disappears. The government of the people by the people for the people must ever remain our watchword and motto. If it page 10 ceases to be government of the people by the people for the people, than democracy has vanished. There are often seen in our midst what must be termed forces of evil. We develop habits that do not tend for the advancement of the race, and we see in all countries in the world, even in the most civilised, habits and customs that tend to deteriorate mankind. It was well said many, many years ago by a Swiss geographer that mankind could only advance where there was a perpetual struggle with Nature. He said that a temperate zone produced the best quality of mankind, because there had to be a continual struggle for life preservation; that if Nature was dominant, as in the Arctic circle, mankind deteriorated; and if life was too easy, bread and water being sure with little effort, as in the tropics, where the struggle for existence was unknown, man degenerated. The only hope for humanity lay in a continual struggle for existence. And perhaps the fact that Southern New Zealand has a more rigorous climate than the balmy north may lead to the production in the south of a more vigorous race than in the north. Our south-westerlies that strike Foveaux Strait are not all evil. We have struggles in our midst; we have many evils to fight. May I point out to you one evil, what I may term the drug habit? We see in use amongst our people two drugs—namely, alcohol and tobacco. We have not been troubled in New Zealand much with the opium habit; it exists in different phases in our midst, but not to any large extent. In some countries it is a great menace to human life, and tends to great degeneration. The opium habit is not confined to China; it is found, though not extensively in many large towns in the world. We look upon the taking of alcohol and the using of tobacco as not being any menace to page 11 our civilisation. Are we wise in underestimating the evil influence of these two drugs? Let us look at the question from a mere money point of view. We are spending in New Zealand many millions a year on these two drugs. I estimate the expenditure at £5,000,000. We spend as much on these two drugs as we spend on all our Government departments, save Post and Telegraphs and Railways, and these two departments give us a revenue. Such expenditure is utterly unnecessary for any good purpose. The use of the drugs by a man does not make him a stronger man physically or a better man morally or a wiser man intellectually. Taking the lowest ground, it is a wasteful expenditure of our resources; but when we consider the physical effects, the moral injury, and the intellectual debasement that follow from an extensive use of these drugs, then it becomes surprising that we should treat their use in the kindly way that is common in our midst. One great evil amongst our youths is cigarette smoking. It seems to me almost universal, and it is not surprising that a disease called "cigarette heart" is not unknown amongst our young men. Cigarette smoking tends to slackness in business and to inefficiency, as well as being a potent cause of ill-health. It lowers the staying powers of our youths. For the cigarette habit no argument can possibly be made. Cigarette smoking is not periodic—it is continuous—a slow, insidious, sure poison. Its results can be foretold as accurately as the expert doctor can foresee the end of incipient locomotor ataxia.