PROHIBITION MISREPRE-SENTATION.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12365, 2 December 1905, Page 2

PROHIBITION MISREPRESENTATION.

SUSPICIOUS SUPPRESSION. Another evidence of the absolute lack of conscience of the No-hcenee party ie provided by an advertisement vyhich is appearing at iuteivale, purporting to give tho "Fruits of the Tiade," under the heading a "Black Record." The return is cUshoncst, not in what it quotes, but in what it euppraseee. It is perfectly true, ac represented in tha advertisement, that the convictions for drunkcnjUGG havo increased yco.ly for ytiaie vast, over the whole colony, but instead of this being an evidence of our degeneration it is eimply, as tho advertisement carefully neglects to point out, a natural corollary to the largo increase in our population. • | The same increase was apparent in tli© returns for arson, aesault and robbery, burglary, forgery and uttering, rape, receiving etolen property, and other eerious oJFencee, yet tho No-license party would hardly venture to suggest that' this is evidence of a rapidly-grow-ing immorality in all directions in tho co'ony. Furthermore, besides neglecting to i point out the increoee in our population, the advertisement, while purporting to quote from the Police Report, carefully ignores the Commissioner's explanation of the incres6o of drunkenness, which ie as follows:— j "The general increase in arrests for drunkenness "s no doubt mostly due to the continued increase of tho population ! ami prosperity of the colony, nnd partly owing to the incrra-od activity of the police in removing drunken persons from the streets, pevcral younger and j more active eorgrante having been I placed in of the men in cities where tho increases have occurred.' The advertisement also, ignores the fact that first offenders, so called in the police courts, are not necessarily first offenders in fact. The old-ret drunkard in the colony can Become a "first offender" trchniraHy in the courts by a neried of abstent : on. and many of the so-called first, offenders are old hands who have reformed or temporarily <Je- - ---appenrerl from poTica supervision for tlie nopftN-arv p n riod. Thus fact rnnr-t havo known to the No-Fceme party- vrho are rcfironsiblo for this speclr.v ndvprti^ement. Another signifuvmt omiFsion : r the neTlrct to rocorrl From the Police j(eTiorfc thp fact that in Canterbury ancT No-th there wae a docrcsee of 100 last ymr in the nnvists for drunkonneiv;. In v'ew of fflct<: tho electors would do trell to 'et the top line alone, and sdvo tht> colony n chance to clcir itrelf of the etigma which is attaching to it abroad, by the ront-'inupl of tho No-'icew-e uirty, by striking two bottom lines. 4 .