THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 42, 13 November 1907, Page 11

THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. ' [The matter in this column is supplied by a representative of tho Now Zealand Allianco, and Tun Dominion is in no way responsible for tho opinions oppressed therein.] INVEUOARGILL-NO FAKING. Tho Licensed Victuallers' roverend teetotum, the Rev. Mr. Thomson, is collecting ammunition at the other end of tho world for use against tho No-License party during next year's campaign. Why does the trade not content itself with testing tho evidenco bearing,upon the success or otherwise of No-License in this country? Let the liquor traflic domonstrato that No-License has failed in Invercargill, Mataura, Clutha, Oamaru, Ashburton, and Groy Lynn, and there is no need to rake up, or fake up, alleged facts from far-off countries—so far oif, that no citizen can check tho quality of tho statements. AVo stand or fall in our battle of 1908 upon tho fruits of tho No-License experiment as thoy havo been gathered in the six NoLiconso areas named. • Look at Invercargill, and own up that tho results aro equal to the most sanguine No-License predictions. 1. General rate reduced by 3-16ths of a penny in tho £. 2. Yot revenuo from tho reduced rate is nearly £1100 more than when hotels wero licensed. 3. This prosperous municipal revenue exists in spito of tho fact that between £800 and £900 per year of hotel license fees havo been lost since tho bars wore closed. 4. The borough valuation has increased by nearly £140,000 siheo No-License was carried. 5. The rates from former hotel properties aro greater to-day than before No-License. 6. Several of the former hotels aro now let for clean businesses at a higher rental thau they brought when licensed as hotels. 7. All tlie forriier hotels aro profitably used under No-License. 8. Nearly sixty new buildings havo been erected in'the borough, and additions rnn.le to a valuo of over £40,000 since No-Licenso was carried. 9. The Mayor's honorarium has been raised by £50' a year. 10. The salaries and wages of all tho Council's employees (about eighty in number) have been raised since tho hotels were closed. 11. The Council's gas and waterworks revenues ' hi\ve increased by over £400 and £500 respectively under No-License. 12. Drunkenness and offences related to our drinking customs havo almost disippeared from the city under No-License. 13/ The open bar'no longer tompts iri<m to destruction in the City of Invercargill. Let tho Rov. W. Thomson rake up, and fake up, facts for the pestilence ho desires to perpetuate in our midst; when he <-■ turns, the facts from Mataura, Oama;-u, invercargill, Clutha, and Ashburton w'M keep him steadily perspiring right up to polling day. Tho year of battle approaches, and it behoves 'every Prohibitionist to digest Christmas dinner, make his New Year vows, then gird up his loins, and start helping to make the converts necessary to carry No-Licenso in December, 1908. "The wicked runs when no man pnrsuoth. but ho makcth better timo when ho is chased.

. DR. BEATTIE ON INSANITY AND < DRINK. "Out insano population continues to iih crease at a rate which is disproportionate to the sane provincial increase." This striking assertion forms tho opening soiitonco in tho principal paragraph of tho annual report of Dr. Beattie, Medical Superintende it of, the Auckland Medical Hospital. "If seems to bo gonorally asserted," says Dr. Boattio. "that this increase does not irdicato a real increase in the insanity of the community, but rather a shuffling off of responsibility, whereby old and infirm persons aro now committed to the Montal Hospital who in former times would have boon treated at homo or in 'other institutions. A reference to our statistics for tho past ten years will disprove,this general assertion. ... The. increase that is taking place is unquosti'mably taking placo at the 20-60 age period, at a time, therefore, when the sexes ought to bo both' mentally and physically m >st vigorous. This is not the place for a thesis upon tho causation of insanity, but I may be permitted to say that I am convinced, as I havo been for years, that heredity and alcohol aro' the two greatest factors in the production of our increasing insano rate. 1 have been ablo to trace hereditary influences ■■ in a large proportion of the cases admitted last year, and I have been very much struck with'the largo number of cases in which oi.e or more parent of the patient was an oxmssivo, drinker." Tlio figures on which the abovo remarks aro based show that on December 31 last thoro were in tho Auckland Mental Hospitil 6?5 patients, of'whom 40,6 were males s-nJ 269 females. This represented an increase for tho year of 43 patients, 10 of these, ho.v over, being transfers from The admissions numbcrcdll79—lo3 males ard 76 females.' This' again constituted a'lecord, 169 ■ having been'committed from -.he Auckland province, as compared with !C0 last year.

PROHIBITION TRIUMPHANT. . .SEVEN-EIGHTHS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES "DRY." ..; ' Mr. John Corrigan describes in tho ''American Review of Reviews" the Prohibition wave in the South.' Georgia's,adoption of, State prohibition calls general attention to thj progress of this wave: — In the North, oxeept iu Indiana, Ohio, and Southern Illinois, the prohibition sentiment is moribund, if not dead; but in tho South it is sweeping onward with relentless and irresistible force,- gaining new converts and increasing in power every year. Suven-eighths of the territory of iho Southern States is to-day "dry," and it is believed that a majority of the population favours national prohibition.

To-day there arc fewer saloons in tho thirteen Southern States than in Greater New York, and only a few more than in the city of Chicago, lu New York there are 30,00'J places whero liquor is sold, in Chicago 28,000, and in the ontiro South 29,000. In Now York State tho estimated population in 1905 was 8,160,000, and the Government issued in tho State that year 34,080 "specialtax stamps" to persons desiring to engago in tho manufacture and sale of liquor. Tho thirteen Southern States, with 23,500,000 people, secured in 1906 less than 30,000 stamps. According to Mr. Corrigan, the success of prohibition in the Southern States is a sequel to nogro slavery. For, he says, tho negro ■ problem and the whisky problem aro very intimatoly connected. When the blacks were in the ascendant after tho Civil War, swarms of negroes, many of them drunk with whisky and all of them intoxicated with the delirium of now found liberty, roamed tho country at large. As tho whites haijo regained author'ty they have found, it moro and more necessary to restrict tho sale of liquor. It was the riot at Atlanta last year which led diroc-.ly to prohibition in Georgia. For two weeks following the outbreak tho saloons wore clos itl by order of tho Mayor, and during that perbd perfect order was maintained. Here is a striking pieco of evidence- as to tho effect of prohibition at Knoxvillo, Tennessee, which is tho largest city in tho Union under prohibition :— WITH SALOONS: CRIMINAL RECORDS, TWO YEARS, 1901-2. Dols. Criminal costs 5074.76 Gaol records, ono month, February, 1U03: Commitments for public' drunkonness ... ... yj Number of cases iri criminal court, two years, 1901-2 23G City school .... 7000 Population, 1903, estimate 35,000 WITHOUT SALOONS: CRIMINAL RECORDS, .TWO YEARS, 1904-5. Criminal costs 2076.21 Gaol records, three years and nino months, 1903-7: Commitments for public drunkenness 14 Number of cases, 1904, two years ... 1(5 City school 8500 Population, 1906, estimate 50,000 If tho black man thus cures tho white man of his drink mania, it will bo ono of the most colossal instances of returning good for ovil ever witnessed in tho history of rival races.