PROHIBITION MOVEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1928, Page 14

PROHIBITION MOVEMENT.

CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES.

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR SPEAKER

Two representatives of the prohibition movement, the Hon. W. F. Finlayson, of Australia, and Mr. Ernest Aldridge, Mayor of Devonport, addressed a large audience at the Town Hall yesterday afternoon. Mr. Finlayson, who is prominent in the Australian Labour party, assisted in the prohibition campaign in New Zealand in 19*22. Professor H. Belshaw presided.

Referring to no-license areas, Mr. Finlayson said the progress in the past six years was highly gratifying. In Oamaru the proportion of people who cftvned their houses was higher than in any other New Zealand town. Invercargill also gave the impression of a high degree of prosperity, and had streets and civic equipment superior to those of any other town of the same size in either Australia or New Zealand.

The ill effects of a reversion to license were, Mr. Finlayson contended, instanced by the case of Ohinemuri, formerly a nolicense area. There had been only five cases of sly grog selling in the courts ift the district during the six years preceding restoration, and in the succeeding two years the number was 14.

Six years ago, said the speaker, prohibition was defeated, but nothing had been done to bring about reforms in the trade during the interval, although the New Zealand Licensing Reform Association had made promises. Mr. Finlayson added: "I advise you to bury that Reform League pretty deep and bury it with its face down. It cannot do and will not do what it offers to do."

For the proportion that wages bore in relation to total receipts, the liquor trade was the worst proposition in the country from the Labour viewpoint. In South Australia a State hotel's balance-sheet showed that bar liquor accounted for 45 per cent of the aggregate receipts, wajtea 8 per cent and profits 49 per cent. The position in the dining! room was: Food. 53 per cent, wages 45 per cent, and profits 2 per cent. The liquor business also contributed heavily to unemploy-' ment by causing men to lose positions, or preventing them from obtaining work, and in some cases making them unfit for employment.