PROHIBITION IN CLUTHA.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 8990, 1 January 1895, Page 3

PROHIBITION IN CLUTHA.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. StR, —With reference to your leaderette in Monday's issue, I will, with your permission, make a few remarks concerning prohibition in .the Clutha district. In the first place, we totally deny that your special-reporter's, article has fallen like a bombshell on the prohibitionists as a party. We are quite. prepared to believe that so long as our licensing laws are laxly administered, so long will there be breaches of the Licensing Act. If the authorities are in earnest in enforcing the Act relating to slygrog selling, and if they put the machinery of the Act into motion with the determination to enforce it, I venture to say that your special -reporters in future will have a " dry" time in the Clutha. Your reporter admits that he, a complete stranger, was able to procure as much 1 liquor as he required. And, I ask, if it ia such an easy matter to procure liquor from these' sly groggeriea, why do not the police authorities take steps to procure a conviction against some of these law breakers.' They have'already shown .that if they choose tbey o_n do it; for instance, the Cheviot convictions. - One or two similar lessons taught to the sly-grog sellers in the Clutha would have a wholesome effect, and even the moat rabid opponent of prohibition would be compelled to acknowledge that, under a proper administration of our Licensing Act, Prohibition does Prohibit. Thanking you to insert tbir* —Yours, &c, ~ \ S. J.