THE DRINK TRAFFIC.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXIII, Issue 302, 4 January 1912, Page 4

THE DRINK TRAFFIC.

TO TIIE jEMTOR '! Sir.—"Seven yews more of hell!•' ( - ■, That, alas, to thousands in this fair country is the dark side of the picture drawn by the votes, cast at the' recent poll. There is good reason to hope that at the next poll the vote for National . Prohibition will be successful; but uiul-. er ordinary conditions three years least must elapse before that poll • taken; and then, if carried, four yea btyond that must roll their course fore the drink, traffic finally And that for many means a year's stretch of hell, kvery year see a fresh crop of thousands of ards standing disgraced on their first appearance in a police court. Every year will find thousands of'-fresh homes ■ M blighted and embittered by the invasion of the drink curse. Every year Mew Zealand- N will be robbed of some of the., finest possibilities of citizenship, because of the thousands who jvill be dragged down into the mire of drunkenness. It is a perpetuation of a hell of this kind for seven long, weary years, that people arc responsible for, whose votes defeated the proposal for Nation-. al Prohibition: Perhaps some of' them., . will have cause to think regretfully of what they have done when the plague of the hell they have voted for -comes into their own .dwelling. Curses have a habit of coming home to roost, and the drink curse is 110 exception. "Liberty!"' is the cry with which the liquorfavoring host have been hurried, into battle, and for another seven years they have got it. "Liberty'' for/ the .

"moderate" as* lie sjts in his chair, sip- . ping his wine, and expressing contempt for the fanatical ' faddists' who talk about, Prohibition. "Liberty"' 'for the < brewer, as he sits in his office, -and chuckles over the golden stream 'that comes pouring into his coffers, from far '• and near. Yes, ami "Libetry" for the drunkard to drink himself to disgrace and death; "Liberty s '..for the a-rd's wife to carry on ;i brokenher burden of sorrow>.i'nd shame.-,"Lib-' ertv" for the drunkard's, children to go ill-trained, ill-fed' and 'ill-clad. It is.-a great! "liberty" certainly. that has been < secured by' the defmt'of National Prohibition— the, Ivind of "liberty" that' - causes more .joy', in hell .than 'anywhere* else. Oncej.inore there ( conies a -.remind- , er of what 'Madame -Roland said as she passed in. - the • streets' -of' Paris, on her way to the,place of execution, the statue of. Jabertyri-"(V Liberty!"' what / crimes are committal in thy name!" "Yigilans" writes as above in the Van-,'-guard of December r 23v; 1911, and to the continuance voter,- it is a terrible indictment. Oft. the very threshold of 1912, *. in. the"first Advocate published this year, what do we'sE'e? In .Australia, ,- •' ''Dick A.v'nst seriously assaulted, • and rendered unconscious by one of a gangof drunlcen brawlers.:' "A' father, mad through'drink, h.'jcks his daughter about with a ■ tomahawk,. and then—-commits suicide.''

Coming to our-own fend (where Icon- ' tinuance voters are responsible for the drink curse), within a few miles / •Dannevirke, 5 a" young man, not yet in his prime, having drank mitil he got * the D.T's., commits suicide. Mr Editor, who can predict what drink caused'' ■ "copy" will sully the pages of the* Advocate before the closing hours of 1912? i What will be the sum total of human . woe and misery caused bv the traffic in strong drink m ; our land before , the , banner of >;ltion;il.'Prohibition shall float over us? Who can tell?. King ' alcohol will exact his toll in bur rlis--' trict before he is ousted, and many H ' one who voted continuance, will have cause to regret having doni* so. Mr Editor! 0! for a press tJiai will "ad- r vocate" the cause of the "People, versus - the Liquor Traffic.'' For in this great fight, the people must win in the end. in spite of opposition. "It is an axiom ' of moral reform that it is never beaten. 1 , Outnumbered it may be, ' hindered-it " ' may be, but its energy is such that it must come again, '•niltil it comes to, v reign.''—l am, etc., / Dannevirke, January 2, 1912..