PROHIBITION THAT DOES NOT PROHIBIT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 67, 18 March 1908, Page 8

PROHIBITION THAT DOES NOT PROHIBIT.

WHAT A SYDNEY RESIDENT SAYS HE SAW IN N.Z. (From the "Sydney Evening News.") The question of prohibition versus continuance of licenses is beginning to agitate voters in New South Wales, and already one vote has been taken, which has led to reduction in some districts. Whether absolute prohibition would be a blessing or a curse in Australia remains to be seen; but in New Zealand it has been said by many people who are not fanatical teetotalers to oe anything but the blessing those extremists "would try and make people believe. j Not long ago Mr. C. Coles, the wellknown furrier in the Victoria Arcade, spent a holiday in the Dominion, and returned about a week ago. He left Sydney a rabid prohibitionist, but the scenes Ibe witnessed in the no-license districts lof New Zealand have satisfieu mm that the last state of the country that goes jin for prohibition after license is very much worse than the first. "r rom my experience in New Zealand," remarked Mr. C. Coles, to an "Evening News" representative, "J have come to the conclusion that prohibition is a farce, and far more injurious to any district it may obtain in than the continuance of j licensing. I "I may tell you that until my recent 1 visit to New Zealand I have been a strict teetotaler, and voted always, whenever.l got the chance, for no-license. But never again. I did not know what I was voting for. We have had no prohibition districts in Australia, and by voting for no-license one was accordingly voting in the dark. Now my eyes have been opened to the demoralising effects of trying to make a people teetotalers by Act of Parliament, and henceforth I shall vote, and do ah ia my power to get others to vote, for continuance. NO DRINK FOR A FRIEND. "My experience began at Auckland, where I found myself on Christmas Eve This was not a prohibition town, certainly, but the hotels close their bars at 10 o'clock p.m. instead of at 11, as they do in Sydney. A few minutes before 10 o'clock struck the hotels were rushed by a mob of men and women with bottles of every size and shape in their hands, and when the clocks had boomed out their ten strokes the moo poured back into the streets again with as much liquor as they could carry, and most unseemly scenes took place. I was new to the business, and retired to my hotel with a friend. In the smoking-room I asked a waiter to bring him a drink. My order was curtly refused. I persisted, and was informed that I could have a drink myself, but, rather than serve my guest with a drink after 10 o'clock, they would give mc in charge. My friend pointed out that there was no need to bother. If I was intent upon buying him alcoholic refreshment, it was to be had all over the town outside the hotels—if you knew your man and the place. "From Auckland I left by train, and travelled through King's Countrj'. This is a district where prohibition reigns, and rightly too, for the reason that it is Maori country, and it would be injudicious to allow liquor to be sold to tbe natives. There are white men, too, of course, in that district, as I very soon found out, and these may carry with them or drink liquor on the train, but may not alight with any. "At a certain junction just before we reached the prohibition district, the train was beseiged by a crowd of men, everyone of whom was liquor laden. As soon : as the train got under weigh, wild orgies began. I was in a second-class compartment, which was pretty full of men who ' carried, in bottles, flasks, and demijohns, ] whisky, brandy, gin, and beer. FIFTY MILES OF MIXED SPIRITS. "'l'm Jimmy!" announced an old man, i pulling out a bottle, and placing it to : his lips. 'Everyone kflows mc, or should know mc. "Drink!" and he passed the bottle round. Everyone took a pull at : it, and, after he had opened the ball, so • to speak, every other occupant ; of the compartment produced his ■ bottle of poison, 50 miles it was one hideous debauch. I got out at a i station, half stupified with the fumes of ( the liquor, in the carriage, and asked the < guard to put mc in another compart- i ment, as everyone in the one I had left 1 was more or less drunk. He put mc into : a, first-class car. I asked him if this was the usual thing in a prohibition district. < He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, contemptuously remarked 'Prohibition!' and j walk«l away.

£1 A BOTTLE FOR whisky "At Taumanmui 1 left the train This was also a prohibition town. I asked man in a large way of business there if folks ever got intoxicated in that town? Tf you want to see what a real drunk is. •come with me,' he said, and conducted ' mc to a shed, where drunken men were • lying all over the place. -Liqiior isn't '. cheap here,' said my friend, 'but if me i_ want it, no power on earth will ston » them getting it, bar they are locked ur_ - m gaol. Ihere are men in that shed • who have saved money for a fc_-tni<__ L till they could afford to pay the usual price—£l—for a bottle of whisky—then > they settle down to it, and consume tha lot. Sly-grog selling is rampant in every prohibition district over here ana though the police do their best to cops with it, the proEt is too great for the sellers to care much about being eau<_t, . though they are generally imprisoned , without the option of a fine.' J "During a stroll round the town . m the evening," said Mr. Coles, «_ f stopped two or three convivial , parties whom I met literally . rolling homeward, and asked them _ where I could get a drink, just out of ( curiosity. The answer invariably was t 'Come along. We know a plant.' I me t I five lots of drunks during my s _ lo n . round, and not one of those parties in- . eluded a member of the great drunk draft J that had arrived on the train with "mc. THEIR ONLY CURIOS. '"You know I am fond of curios, and I - asked a shopkeeper if there were any to -be picked up in Taumarunui. "There - are,' he said, pointing to a heap of ; bottles, 'dead marines! Those are'the • only curios we deal in here.' "These things,'' said Mr. Coles, "will show you what happens in small towns where prohibition is supposed to have eliminated the drink-curse. Instead of doing so, it has largely increased it. In a centre where hotels keep open, a man, if he wants a drink, will enter a hotel' 1 have his drink, and depart, but in these ; no-license districts once a man gets into ! a sly-grog shop—and, mind you, nothing > is easier—there he until he haa sufficient liquor on 'board to last hin, l until the next morning. ; PROHIBITION CAUSES DRUNKEN. NESS. "Prohibition is a greater caused drunkenness than all the -hotels that were ever built," added Mr. Coles. "i! , man should have liberty to take what ha likes, then he wouldn't get drunk. In is the supposed unattainable that we all strive after. Once we have secured' that it no longe ( r becomes attractive. Tha moral is obvious. Open a few -good hotels, see that they are properly ariii well conducted, and sly-grog selling die. a natural death, and the public will not drink to excess. "A_> my ideas of prohibition have been altered," Mr. Coles concluded, "and for; '* the future I am heart and soul for con« tinuance."