DRUNKENNESS AND PROHIBITION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1261, 17 October 1911, Page 6

DRUNKENNESS AND PROHIBITION.

A lie may keep Its throno a whole age longer, if it eknlk Behind the- shield of soiuo fair-seeming name. Wo aro told by, tho Prohibitionists that by the adoption of No-License or Prohibition we will put an end fo tho vice of drunkenness. To hear the Prohibitionists talk about the people of (his fair Dominion oue would think that Now Zealandors are the most drunken and iniquitous peoplo on tho faco of tho earth. Indeed, I hey have been talking so long and vehemently in this manner that'they have themselves come to regard their reiteration as the truth. How easily some men nnd women aro induced to accept a mcro assertion without any supporting evidence as against the solemn fact with all tho backing of unpurchnsable official figures. From tho returns in this year's Parliamentary Paper wo gather that "the number of persons prosecuted for drunkenness during the past financial year was 11,718, an increase of 10C1 on tho number charged with, the offence during tho previous year. Tho total number of persons arrested for drunkenness in tho four centres and their suburbs were SiSB males and GOG females, an increase on tho previous year of 917 males and 111 females, and of those numbers all but four persons were convicted." Now, if it were correct to state that , the spread of No-Lieenso led to a diminution in (irunkc-nncps, there would be a decline of fifteen per c*nt at least in this form of viciousness-, .is there are twelve No-License areas out of seventysix electorate, bub we see that drunkenn*v; is iiierc.-!=ir.<; in the Dominion. Manilesdy Ao-Lireiw or Prohibition is not the remedy. Promotion is not even a moral agency for human betterment. ,\nd as a cure for drunkenness it is exposed as a sham, a delusion, a snare.'