WHAT OF NEW ZEALAND?

Dunstan Times, Issue 3144, 20 November 1922, Page 5

WHAT OF NEW ZEALAND?

A COMPARISON WITH U. S. A. In New Zealand we have not the low saloon system. We have not a tithe of the liquor evils that America had. The Trade here is, on the whole, decentlyconducted by decent men; our people compare more than favourably with any in the world for sobriety. Mr Massey said in the House the other day that “it was a fact that New Zealand was a temperate country—probably the most temperate in the world outside France." Some reforms are necessary, of course—and they are coming. They most come, just as surely as the steady decline in drunkeness during the past ten years has come. Prohibition in New Zealand would bo a disaster, just as it was in America. It wouid create a host of law-evaders. It would bring drugs and dope and crime. It would drive the liquor trade underground. It would attract criminals and wasters to this country, for there would be ample opportunities for making fortunes out of sly-grog. Let us think well and long before we risk this “experiment." A licensed trade out in the open can be watched, taxed, regulated and controlled, a poison booze traffic underground wouid menace the whole well-being of our nation. Vote Continuance. *