STATE DISTILLERIES.

Press, Volume XLV, Issue 7157, 19 September 1888, Page 6

STATE DISTILLERIES.

SIR WILLIAM FOX AND MR SAUNDERS.

About 120 people assembled last night in the Congregational Church Schoolroom to hear anaddressbySirWilliamFoxin answer to Mr A. Saunders , schemefor the establishment of State distilleries. The Rev. L. M. Isitt occupied the chair, and on the platform were the Rev. H. C. M. Watson, J. 08. Hoare, and Mr Saunders. The Chairman opened, the meeting by briefly introducing Sir William Fox, who said that the proposal of Mr Saunders was a stunning one, and when he read it it quite took away his breath, and coming from the quarter whence it did deserved earnest attention and consideration. According to the proposal of Mr Saunders the farmers and grain growers of the colony would reap a rich profit, and that drinkers would get better liquor. If Mr Saunders' proposal were carried, we should in a few years be sodden in strong drink, morally, socially, spiritually and politically. [Applause.] We should fall as the people of b wed en had fallen—before distillation was restricted and when every farmer distilled his own grain—into a miserable, wretched, besotted nation, which even a good educational system could not remedy. Since the restriction of distillation the people in Sweden were progressing towards total abstinence and prohibition, and Denmark was following in the same direction, becoming courteous, intelligent, industrious, and possessing, judicious railways, which paid. (Laughter and apflause.) Suppose, for a moment, that Mr aunders had his way, and a still was established at Oamaru. Every kind of whiskey would be prohibited from importation, and the Government would nave supreme control. What would there be to stop the Government from going In for making rum, gin, beer, wine, and so on, and taking the breweries into their own hands, the latter of which might only be done- on terms of compensation, with which he believed very few would agree. (Applause.) If Government were to do all this it would be the greatest stroke of. protection ever inflicted on a people, and worse than the tariff, which protected 170 articles, including " the food of the people." Mr Saunders was also very inconsistent. In one letter it would help the farmers and hurt no one; in another it would remove the whole army of importers, &c He failed to see bow Mr Saunders could reconcile these two assertions. To carry Mr Saunders' proposal would be to place the country in such a position that the Government, would be independent of the people; would .spend just as it liked, and increase the price of grain to suit elections. It would absolutely put an end to the present system of Government. It would be a most disastrous and dangerous experiment, striking at the root of our constitutional powers. Mr Saunders would do it all for expediency, not for principle. He had evidently abandoned principle. The proposal to the mind of Sir William Fox was constitutionallj and politically wrong, and contrary to all toe principles of freetrade or any other trade. It would involve the colony in great constitutional difficulties, give the Government a power it never had before, demoralise the nation, and turn us into a nation of whiskey drinkers without a penny in our pockets. (Loud applause.) Mr Saunders, in replying, said that Sir William Fox's allusion to the system as it obtained in Gothenberg, illustrated his own proposal in reference to New Zealand. What he proposed to do was to close the sources from which we were deluged with whiskey, and concentrate the trade in the hands of the Government, who would thus be made to feel their responsibility, and the farmers who benefit. t present the-farmers get a shilling for that which, without duty, and in another form the whiskey drinker paid 20s. He had hoped that Sir W. Fox would have been able to have pointed out where the disadvantages came in, but, as he had not done so, there was little or nothing left for him (Mr Saunders) to reply to. He never dreamed of the Government having this revenue without a check. It would come in in exactly the same way as it did now, and could not be spent without, the sanction of the Houee of Representatives. Looking at the matter from philanthropic political, economical, commercial, and social points of viewitwas in favor of our doing as other countries did, viz., manufacturing the things we used ourselves. He could hot see why we should encourage distilleries in other countries and sacrifice £180,000 a year for Importing this kind of diink. We should do away with a lot of persons engaged in forcing intoxicating drinks into the place. fhe Government would have its character bo secure, and would not indulge in the wretched practices indulged in by many who sold intoxicating liquors. Sir William Fox in again speaking as io She Swedish system, said that it waa lot looked upon as a success. The listillation Yeas not in the hands of the jothenberg Corporation. It was restricted ;o a few private people, the same as in Snßland. As a proof of the failure of the iy&tem, he observed that the example of aothenberg was not followed by any rtber town in Sweden. On the motion of Mr C« M. Gray and ;he Rev. J. 08. Hoaks, Sir William Fox md Mr Saunders were accorded a hearty rote of thanks, aad the proceedings dosed.