PONSONBY AND PROHIBITION.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1888, Page 2

PONSONBY AND PROHIBITION.

(To the Editor.)

Srß.w-1 was glad to see the advertisement in last night's Stab drawing attention to the brewers' dodges and bogies, by which In their canvass they are tryingto frighten the ratepayers of the Pousoaby district. On the face of ib ypu will see what a ridiculous story it is. Who's going to open a club ? Of course the brewers and moderates will not, because they confess what horrible places they are, and how much worse than a public-house ; therefore if the licenses are stopped, the temperance mea will have all the aid these gentlemen can give in petitioning Government to refuse a charter tq any twenty sinners who Bipy desire to inflict such a ourse on this suburb, and I feel sure" the-brewers,, publican?, moderates, and teetotallers combined vjU be able to defeat any such scheme, and if not, no Government could live who fled so directly in face of the expressed will of the people. Ladies, I know, have been particularly operated on with these specious but false arguments. Never was there a better opportunity for experimenting on prohibition. The principal hotel is changing hands. God only knowe what we may have to put up with under anew landlord, or what sort of curse may be inflicted on us in the future. Then, as to closipg our only accommodation house, no one desires to do any such thing. The house will not be changed in any respect ; only made •more respectable by the stopping of the gale of intoxicating drinks in the bar, and the landlord will save £40 ayear (license fee) to compensate him for loss. of profit on the drink. And thou, see what :an advantage it will be to the whole community. The very presence of a drinkinghouse always depreciates the value of property (ask Reinuera property-owners how '. they would like a great pub. stuck up in their midst), and we want nothing in Ponsonby to do that at the present time. All property-owners, then, should therefore support temperance or prohibition candidates. The experiment has been tried In London, where the Shaftesbury Park Estate and the Queen's Park Estate (about ten thousand inhabitants in each) are without drink shops, nearly all working men's dwellings ; and what says the Secretaries to these estates? " First, we have never a house standing empty, always.a list of names in hand waiting their chance of gefctiDg a residence free from the traffic ; and next, no trouble with our tenants, they all pay their rents regularly." I am euro some Ponsonby property-owners would delight in such a state of things.; I was talking to a working man a few weeks ago, who was on his way with his family to Auckland. I asked him what part he intended to reside ir.. He said he thought Ponsonby. " Oh, but," said J, "they are trying to close the drink shops there. Perhaps you would not agree with .that ?" " Wouldn't I?" said he; "I should be all the more sure to go there;" and I found he was not an abstainer, but simply a sober, steady working man, glad (like so i many others) to be away with his wife arid j family as far as possible from this evil. j Then we have another class of men so re- j ligioua they will not vote at all. Canon | Wilberforce says :—" A Christian man who will not fight evil is an anachronism and a hindrance to every good work." Fancy a Christian man praying to God to remove all evil, and refusing to help to do it himself. Here is an opportunity for all good men combined to remove a great social and moral pest from our midst, and these men fold their arms and stand idly by, and, strange to say, think they are better men than those who do. I wonder how far that bitter curse against Meroz will affect them. It is not the people of Ponsonby who are opposed to prohibition. The fight against the temperate inhabitants is being fostered and carried on by brewers and their canvassers from outeide the district. Leave the people to themselvee, and my word for it, public j houses would not exist long. In conclusion, j I would ask any doubters to abstain from i voting until evening, and then if all be true, i they will see enough of what drink can do { to make any respectable person forswear it I for ever; but all right-minded ratepayers • go early to the poll, vote the temperance! ticket, and have nothing to do with the j brewers' nominees, and our district will be j happier and far more prosperous. Storekeepers will do more business, and there will be fewer bad debts.—l am, etc., T./-W. Glover; Hamilton Road, Poneonby.

(To the Editor.)

Lm,-v,On the eve of the Fonaanby licensing election, with the issues of Prohibition and non-Prohibition before the«\ ratepayers,, 4 think ifc only in the interest*, of fair play

that) tb.e opinions of the highest authorities should be made known. In this colony the Legislature has decided that suc&ioneere, wine and spirit merchants, or any party haying; a leaning 'towards the liquor traffig are ineligible las commissioners. It is a moot point for all of our fair-tjiinking colonista as to the moral, if legal, right of candidates' eligibility ' when they have so emphatically shown themselves biassed by declaring in {favour of closing well-conducted houses .'without any just cause, thus constituting I themselves prosecutors, juries and judges at ! the same time. The following opinions, given I upon the high authorities of the late Lord ' ChancellorQairns andthepresentLordChan- ! cellor, should hold good as regard our own licensing benches. In England the ! licensing bench is composed of magistrates, and it is a notorious face that rarely, if ever, an interested magistrate is known to adjudicate, or even to be present at the licensing meetings. An interview recently ' took place between some of the leading i representatives of the liquor traffic and the Lord Chancellor. Lord Cairns, it , seems, was quotaed as of opinion that the fact of a gentleman being engaged in the trude of a brewer or in the brewery trade should not be regarded as a i disqualification for the magisterial office. ' The presep b Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, 1 held similar views and earned in the interview in public matters, and where large trades were coucernod, would be decidedly ■ dangerous* in such matters affecting the public welfare, and he considered the privileges due to a travelling community should not be affected by the piquea of classes, and should not be supported by the people or countenanced by the Government. An opinion comipg from such a source, " The highest legal opinion in Great Britain,"'should carry great weight in all communities of fair-thinking Englishmen. And I ask the electors of Pousonby and other licensing districts to ponder well before voting on such important subjectsvotes tha.t may have the effect of ruining deserving and respected colonists., votes that may create the thanks of the trade geijcrally. . Hβ said he would avoid making a brewer a magistrate with power to adjudicate upon interested matters where he was directly interested by having public-houses, but ha would do so in exceptional cireu.mßbßn.ceß. He touched the common sense of the question when he declared that he regarded the appointment of persons openly hostile to the liquor traffic and all prejudiced parties biassed in their views inadmissible by ! law. I In the came light ac the appointment of a brewer might reasonably be supposed to have a leaning in one direction, so gentlemen of strong counter opinions might equally be supposed to have a leaning the other way. Such prejudiced poreons in the place of respectable duly licensed houses, an evil of. such magnitude, and of such a nature that It will spread ruin amongst pur youth, and cast a blot upon our fair young colony. The question of compensation naa already been dealt with by an abler pen than mine, and I am convinced that the colonists of New Zealand will not perpetrate such an injustice at the spoliation of fellow-citizens to gratify the whims and deairee of those lacking selfcontrol themselves, and who have pledged themselves to an endles vendetta against the liquor traffic, irrespective of sterling worth and respectability. Your verdict at the poll to-morrow will, I trust, put an end for all time to the senseless cry we have-heard so much of late. Apologising for trespassing on your space. —Yours, etc., Toleratjon.

(To the Editor.)

S IR) —Mr Stichbury baa resided in Pon-, sonby for twenty-four years, and he welj says that in all that time ho has nover seen; any measure brought forward to affect the welfare of the district so muoh as the total prohibition farce. He speaks truly, for it will affect the welfare of Ponsonby, and that very niuch for its benefit. Why should not we be respectable and free from licensed bouses as well as other suburbs ? Has pro-, hibition done any harm to Mount Albert or .Remuera? No; certainly not They arq the resort of respectable, sober and industrious people, and we, if we adopb the same principle, shall make a fair bid forsimilar desirous persons. A farce ? Nay, it will be no farce as Mr S. will see. There are many, although not abstainers themselves.who would gladly see* the temptation removed from their uridet. Polling day will show no farce, and although prohibition may be defeated, we shall not be disgraced with 17 votes as the brewers were at Mount Albert. I firmly believe we shall win. If the people say no, we shall waib and fight again. One thing, we shall noc coerce any vote as canvassers on the other side have done, threatening one poor woman unless she voted for them that they would injure her to the beet of their ability. It ie not likely that clubs, or a club, will be substituted. That is a battle cry. of the, enemy to frighten weak voters. Ratepayers, don't bo misled. Why are there no clubs in the above-mentioned districts, while in other cases they cannot pay their way ? No ; the Colonel Secretary will scarcely grant a charter in the face of a distinofc vote of no Ucepee. The other evil mentioned can be also put aeide. Liquor shops or no, these evils exist, and will not be multiplied by the taking away of two licenses.

t Why Mr S. should rail at Sir Wm. I Fox, I cannot understand. However, he i will not sink under it I am sure. It was not his presumption, bub the deeiro of a large number of ratepayers, which caused him to stand. Mr Stichbury has touched a very old "sing-song" when he mentions doing away with the rights of every "sane Briton." Let me tell him that the liquor traffic has done more to rob "sane Britons " of all their rights than any prohibitory Act yet carried out; it has manufactured many insane Britons, and is doing so It has caused insanity, murder, etc., and is at the root of nearly every evil under the sun. Where is the" family who has not felt its baneful influence ? can you find one? I cannot. Therefore let all those who know its power do what they can now to check ita evil influence.

Mr S. seems to think that it is #rong to \ progress. Why should msn be of the same mind now as twenty years ago ? Has he i kept his mind unchanged in ail matters during that time? This is an Age of progress, and we shall see greater changes in the next twenty years fehan that of the absence of the Highway Board from the Suffolk Hotel. I expect by that time the hotel •will have followed the Board. I think it will take much crushing to knock the nonsense out of temperance folk; it has beon tried, but does not succeed. What an uncalled-for sneer at the women who fight nobly for God, Some, and Humanity* If some men were a little more governed by the women, on this point at any rate, how much misery and sin would be done away with. The women have done a noble work, and are doing so, here, and have they not cause to fight against the traffic fpr who suffere more, than they* except perhaps the children, when there is a dranken husband in the case ? Women, do hot bt> frightened, but do all you can to put temptation out of the way of your children. Vote straight for prohibition en Thursday. —Yours, &c.i A. Osborne Knlgiit.

~. ~ . XTo the Editor.) Sir,—Ju election of committee on Thursday next there should "be a dear and accurate understanding of the point at issue between the different candidates. There is now misunderstanding. The professed a&dmtsutbte object of the eeveral teetotal societies is the putting away tit ftrunken'ness, β-nd its prevention. AU respectable

men deem the object and aim just and good and praiseworthy; but gome differ from them as to theirmeans, methods and tactics, and reckon their vast efforts of fifty yearg an unnecessary failure. TsetotaUam. anft drunkenness are the extreme?. Teetotalers are the extremists. Miration *n al{ things—in eating, drinking, judging, pro-ceedTna-iVwise ;' does not even nature itself so teach. ? Yet no man, licensed to pell and to do right, should be allowed to poison the people. This should fee visited with punishment and stopped by force. Use wines and abolish distilled spirits and all adulteration. The teetotallers are now going so far as to advocate the shutting up of all inns, and this by compulsory law • but even were the wish or purpose to abolish public inns correct, compulsion is an unnecessary evil It ja, legitimate and fair to occasion the closing of public hotels by preaching the people, into a voluntary disuse of them. And moral suasion is efficient with the truth ; error may need compulsion. In politics and morals coercion is bad and impolitic; re-aefcion terribly destructive, like as in Charles 11., you know, after straight-jacketed Puritans' regijne. _ Now for candour and fairness, be it known, and understood, and kept in view, that the intention, next Thursday, at PonBonby, is " Yoluntaryismor Compulsoryism, Moderatisfcs oi<Extremists." — lam, etc., W.Ji.fo.