The Bruce Herald. TOKOMAIRIRO, JANUARY 6, 1905. AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 1, 6 January 1905, Page 4

The Bruce Herald. TOKOMAIRIRO, JANUARY 6, 1905. AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.

The closing of the Waitati Inebriate Home, which our liberal Government has been running with no little cost, for the past three years, for the general and direct behoof of drunken humanity, must give us pause. No blame is attached to those in charge, else only the dismissal of incompetents would have t aken place. ' The methods, the best jhat could be thought of by experts.

were varied according to the cases. Still little, very little, success has eventuated. Similar experiments have been tried in the * Home Country with the same very poor results. " The game is hot worth the candle," is the only apothegm applicable. AU reports of qxperts show; that those deeply tainted with the disease of drunkenness are, like other maniacs, not. amenable to persuasion. If, by compulsion they have been deprived of alcoholic stimulants for a season, they may, while sober, have agreed as to the evils of the drink habit, but when freed from ; restraint, their appetite for " swill " returns, and "like the sow that is washed they return to their wallowing in the mire.". The books of magistrates' courts are everywhere ready to prove this, and the law has been partly framed to meet such cases. There are records of persons who have appeared scores of times before the same court, and been punished by fine or imprisonment for being drunk. Now and again the newspapers publish a case of some notorious male or female who has reached or got beyond, the " century." No amount of fining or sending to gaol seems to shame these habit and repute drunkards. During enforced sober hours they have frequently been heard to inveigh against the evils of drink, and have time and* again "sworn off" till swearing-off too becomes a habit. It is, humanly speaking, next to impossible to cure such maniacs— to change their acquired second nature, strengthened as it often is, by hereditary tendencies. The conclusion naturally arrived at-, is that, with the usual pro b ati ye exam pie, compulsory restr ami n t is of no avail in the very cases where its influence has been looked to to redeem some loved one from the bonds of iniquity. With . the shutting of the Waitati Institution and the reasons assigned we are brought face to face with the question, " Is any constraint or prohibition the correct method to take with a drunkard that he may be turned into a man with sober inclinations ?" Incarceration, or confinement in a " home " constrains only while it lasts ; and a prohibition order has a certain sobering influence just while it cannot be evaded. Neither of these has been found an effective cure. There is no doubt that the Government so reasoned before it was decided to end the costly experiment. There is also no doubt that the Government has felt obliged to cater for the desires of all in providing a Licensing Law.Tastes differ in drinks as well as in everything else. We have, therefore, drinkers of all kinds of drink, and in the licensed bar are all kinds of drink, froni bovis to brandy. With the law allowing, even in a. no-license district, a certain quantity of alcoholic liquor per day to be procured by every individual, and with the advocates of prohibition or no-license themselves dclaring their unwillingness to " deprive the poor man of his beer," drinking is legalised and the habit condoned. Here is a copy of the sub-section of last session's Licensing Acts Amendment Act, which legalises the daily personal introduction into a " nolicense " district of a quantity that should more than satisfy the demands of any soberly-inclined man or woman : Section 5, sub-section (f) : " Nothing in this section shall prevent any resident in such district, when outside the district, from obtaining for his own personal use, with right to take the same into the district if he chooses, liquor not exceeding one quart of spirits or wine or one gallon of beer in any. one day ; and it shall not be necessary for the vendor to enter such sale as required by paragraph (c) hereof, or to furnish any statement to the clerk of the Magistrate's Court in respect thereof." With due entry of sales in the seller's books with duplicate sent to the clerk of court, any larger order may be sent to any resident in a " no-license " district ; and, to- prevent slander or scandal, these entries are not to be disclosed by anyone ; except for police or court case purposes, under a penalty not exceeding ,-£2 O. It seems to us that the case for the total abstinence cause is wholly absent except where inconvenience by distance or poverty intervenes. This inconvenience will press mostly upon the poor man, in spite of the desire that he, should not be fobbed of his beer. But the deprivation may be a good thing for him, like the taking of edged tools from children. If he -had much facility of introducing liquor into his home, he would at the same time have a direct means of keeping alive and spreading the drink habit. Where the inhabitants of a'" no-license " district are not too far ft dm one of the other kind, liquor maybe frequently taken into homes, and the habit of drinking exhibited to the family.' This would seem a speedier way of creating drunkards than the. opening of a public house with restrictions against those under a certain age. Altogether, between the desire of many for total abstinence or the spread of temperance, and the law that gives liberal daily draughts to drouthy people, things are a bit mixed.