THE GERMAN LIQUOR LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 247, 17 October 1891, Page 2

THE GERMAN LIQUOR LAW.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —1 think that temperance reformers in Auckland will rejoice to find you devoting long leaders to the discussion of the various movements for the regulating of the liquor traffic in many parts of tho world.

Ib is tho modest ambition of these reformers that their principles only need to be properly adverfcisod in order to meet with general acceptance, and they can think of no more effoctive method of advertising bhan by means of lucid and forcible leaders, especially from tho pen of those who do not see. eyo to eye with them, and especially from editors like yourself, sir, who write for the masses. The fact that a proud Emperor considers it not beneath his imperial dignity to initiate regulating reform in his own empire against the drink trade, and on behalf of his people, is indeed a sign of the times. It is, howover, sadly true that many heads, wiser and more experienced than that of William of Germany, havo tried to regulate this traffic, bub have lamentably failed, for tho simple reason bhat whon once the habit of taking intoxicants becomes fixed in any individual, his thirst laughs all regulation to scorn, and he is willing to risk all thab most men value, in order to get what ho lusts after. The autocrat of Germany will find that, ib was easier for his ancestor to regulato the "parvenu of Corsica" than it will bo for him to regulato th* evils that arise from the use of beer and spirits and intoxicants in any form.

Our own Now Zealand laws are simple and efficient enough for the regulating of the traffic if it wero possible to do so anywhere, but we find, as a matter of fact, that out of twenty prosecutions initiated under them fully nineteen are dismissed, not because the laws have nob been broken, and nob because the judges do nob'know this, and not because the police are not convinced of it, but because the relation of buyer and seller in this traffic is so peculiar that they form together a defgnsive league, which can dofy law and set regulation at naught. As things now exist, some people will have the drink, because some other poople will sell it, and though we see around us daily illustrations of what happens to those who will have it, and though those who sell it musb also see what we see, yet the work goes on, sans laws, sans everything.

Thinking reformers, who are unbiassed by tho use of drink, look forward to the prohibition of both tho manufacture and sale of intoxicants by tho people, for tho sake of the people, for there aro some conditions in lite that cannot be modified or made safely tenable, and for mortal., to enter into them is to risk the loss of all that is good, and this drinking habit is one of thorn, 1 think.— lam. etc., K. C. Cabu.