GOST OF PROHIBITION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 10, 6 October 1927, Page 12

GOST OF PROHIBITION

Sir—Your correspondent “Continuance" may bo interested to know that the prohibitionists are not the only people who use the. term ’ liquor traffic ” Article 22 of the Covenant of tho League of Nations brackets the liquor traffic with the slave traffic and the arms traffic as undesirable things. When “Continuance" says “If I choose to spend ss. or 10s. a week on alcoholic stimulants, what has it got. to do wl t“ Mr. Murray or anyone else?" he adopts a deplorable anti-social attitude. rhe drug addict, spending ss. or 10s. a week, or more, on cocaine or morphia, might well seek to defend himself lyito Die same stylo of argument. The plain fact is that the conservative estimate of £8,500,000 per annum spent on intoxicating liquor in New Zealand produces the most deplorable results economically, socially and morally, and each individual who contributes anything to that total must necessarily accept a share of the responsibility for the results. What made me a total abstainer and a prohibitionist was tho realisation that I could only obtain the moderate portion of alcohol that I used to consume by keeping in operation tho gigantic system of organised temptation rnd waste that we know in tho New Zealand liquor traffic. . . There are thousands of moderate drinkers who vote for prohibition because they realise that they are no better for tho habit, that it would be a relief if the social custom were abolished, that the community generally has an enormous amount to gain from the abolition of the liquor traffic, and that, if the youth could grow up in a social environment where alcoholic liquor is not tempting them they would never miss and be all the better from the points of view of health and prosperity. . ~ „ So far as comparing the U.S.A, with British communities is concerned, perhaps “Continuance" may be interested in the opinion of Mr. Murdoch Fraser, chairman of the Taranaki Hospital Board, who has just returned from a visit to the U.S.A, and Canada. Mr. Fraser has declared that .ho i® ■V o *',? J? r ?" hibitionist, but after visiting the U.S.A, ho is sure that prohibition has come to stay and says:— "The young Americans have learned, through a process of education, to regard alcoholic liquor as a poisonous drug and they are growing up into a healthy and prosperous people, to, whom the habit of drinking is largely unknown. After visiting Canada, Mr. Murdoch Fraser said:— ~ , . "In Canada, where the eale of liquor was under Government control, conditions were not nearly so satisfactory, and the only good thing Mr. I raser had to sav for the liquor business there was that the profits were spent on the public hospitals. _ . The abolition of the nquor traffic is a great social, sanitary measure, and the benefits to be derived from it tar outweigh any temporary discomfort or inconvenience that may be associated with the change,—l am. etc., J. MALTON MURRAY. Executive Secretary, N.Z. Alliance. September 26.