DRINK UNDER NO=LICENSE

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 320, 6 October 1908, Page 4

DRINK UNDER NO=LICENSE

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? The letter from an Ashburton mother, published last week, has evidently had a disturbing effect on the No-License party. At a meeting held in the Vivian Street Church on Alonday evening, the Rev. L. Dewdney referred to the matter. "God help that mother," ho said, "but who sold the liquor?" The answer is simple enough. The liquor was sold by a sly-grog dealer, whose business was established and made profitable - by tho No-License vote. Every man and every woman who voted for No-License in Ashburton, and every paid agent of the No-License party who induced the electors to try this disastrous policy is responsible for tliat boy's downfall and for his mother's brokon heart. Unlicensed Sale. Aluch as they may desire it, there is no escape from the responsibility. Every advocate of No-License knbws that he is not fighting against liquor; indeed, when soliciting the voto of the moderate drinker, prohibitionists usually lay stress on tho fact that they arc not trying to deprive him, but are pimply seeking to close the open bar. In other words, they object to liquor being sold openly, but do not object to jts being sent privately in any quantity. Since 1904, when tlioy were offered in Air. Seddon's famous "Clauso 9" tho option of making NoLicense mean no-liquor, and refused it, they have simply been advocates of the 'private sale of liquor in preference to the public licensed sale. A Promising Partnership Even now, when their method has proved itself so disastrous in its effects, they still ask tho electors to vote for the system which they know means the sly-grog den, and they do so with their eyes open. They are practically making themselves partners in this nefarious business, and they are the real sellers of every drop of sly-grog sold in Ashburton. It is them, and theni alone, the poor Ashburton mother has to thank for her son's ruin. It is useless to throw the blame, as Air. Dewdney does, on the merchants who supplied tho liquor They rcceive tho order ill tho ordinary way of business, and execute it as they are entitled and authorised by law to do, and living as they do at a distance how can they possibly tell whom they are supplying? The truth is that the system is a pernicious ono, as Ashburton has found to its sorrow, and in a few weeks Ashburton's opinion will bo expressed at tho polls in no uncertain manner, in spite of all the efforts of. the sly-grog—Prohibition partnership. CLOUDING THE ISSUE. Sinco the above was written an advertisement, inserted by tho No-License party, lias appeared in The Dominion, which attempts to belittle this poor mother's testimony. Tjiis advertisement states that she was never a member of the Prohibition party, as alleged. No such suggestion was ever made, as a reference to tho columns of Tun Dominion of last Wednesday will show, so that all argument based on this purely fanciful allegation falls to the ground. Equally futile is the statement that the unfortunate youth onco obtained liquor on a Sunday in an adjoining licensed district. Having acquired tho taste, he no doubt obtains liquor wherever and whenever he can. This in no way affects his mother's statement that he acquired that taste in Prohibition Ashburton; neither does it do away with tho fact that in ordor to save her soil she got the police to raid a sly-grog den on a Sunday, and that her boy was found on the premises. C 905