WHAT PROHIBITIONISTS KNOW.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15016, 10 July 1914, Page 5

WHAT PROHIBITIONISTS KNOW.

TO THIS EDITOR OT "THE PRESS." Sir, —In the course of your article in Tuesday's issue on the licensing question, you say, inter alia, that Prohi- j bitionists "know that more beer ■, is consumed in Invercargill now than-in the days when it was a license district." Permit mc, with all respect, to say that Prohibitionists know nothing of the kind. What they do.know is that a statemont to that effect is being industriously circulated by the liquoTsellers, but Prohibitionists are not prepared to accept that statement on its face value so easily as you seem to be. Speaking as a Prohibitionist, with a fair knowledge of what other Prohibitionists tldnk of the. matter, I venture to say that experience has taught us to be very chary, indeed, in accepting as veracious the testimony given by liquor people concerning liquor in Nolicense districts. The liquor-sellers' trick of confusing the Invercargill No license electorate with the Invercargill police district, which includes license areas outside the electorate itself, has been exposed so often that most fairminded people, by this time, will regard liquor testimony on the point you have raised with suspicion.—Yours, W. J. WILLIAMS. Sumner, July Bth. [The above is only the first portion of a long letter sent by our correspondent. The rest of it consists entirely of a discussion on familiar lines of drunkenness statistics, which are quite beside the point of the statement to.which he objects. Xhiring tho session we cannot afford to .print long letters unless they are to the point. We must again appeal to correspondents to helo us in saving space.—Ed. "The Press."]