NO-LICENSE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 286, 27 August 1908, Page 8

NO-LICENSE.

There was a large and enthusiastic gathering at-the Army Citadel, Newtown, last evening, to hear Miss . Anderson - Hughes. The Rev. W. J. Williams was in the chair. The speaker is evidently at liel - best before a large audience, and she held tho_ attention of her hearers from start to finish. Miss Hughes stated that fioino tinio back the attention of the Indian Government was arrested by tho enormous amount of deaths each year through cobra bite—some 20,000. The Government offered a bounty to every person who would kill and bring in a cobra 3' head to the State officials. Each year they paid out very largo sums of monoy in rewards, and still the' deathrate was no less, and on investigating the matter it'was found that tho people wore' breeding tho snakeß 60 as to obtain tho extermination reward. ' Miss Hughes stated that .the Government did not thou licenso this horrible practise, as tho Government hero license a traffic which (tho speaker maintained) caused infinitely more deaths,' but'they made any person found breeding the cobra suffer severely. The speaker said, the liquor traffic could not be regulated, and at tho present timo there were on ,tho .statute, books of Great Britain 500 laws dealing, with tho liquor question, and still tho politicians at Home found that they had by no moans finished dealing with this trade. It was a poisonous trade, and they could not havo tho serpent without tho sting. Tho police returns, said Miss Hughes, showed that, the liquor party-wero making seriously inaccurate statements, for in every No-license district crime had reduced very greatly, and in Clutha, where No-license had now been in force for 15 years, the reduction in crime was remarkable. Clutha- electorate liacl cast a higher vote last election for Nolicense than any olectoratc in the Dominion, and that wais .good enoujrh evidence that the people there wero' satisfied. In conclusion Miss Hughes dealt with ths sly-grog question, and road extracts from the Police Report to show that sly-grog selling was carried on to a far greater extent in lioonse towns than in No-licenso towiia. / Tho audience were greatly interested, and the speaker was. applauded'time and