AGAINST CANTEENS. NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE RESOLUTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1909, Page 6

AGAINST CANTEENS. NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE RESOLUTION.

The executive of the New Zealand Alliance, while not now entering into the discussion of the general subject of compulsory military training, resolved, at a special meeting to-day : — "That, inasmuch as the canteen in military camps, serves no useful purpose, but is a .source of dangerous temptation to many, and has frequently led to scenes of regrettable excess and disorder, the executive of the Alliance enters its emphatic protest against the inclusion of canteens for the salo of intoxicating liquors in the Military Bill which is to come before Parliament during the coming week. It believes that when parents realise the danger to which their sons will be exposed through tho canteen many will rise in protest, and decline the military proposals altogether rather than risk the ruin of their sons. There are fathers who quite approve of the principles of volunteering, as such, for their sous, who will have good reason to oppose the whole system if their boys are to be exposed to drinking customs which destroy more lives than a foreign foe has ever destroyed." At a _ meeting of the Christchurch Prohibition League the following resolution in regard to canteens at military camps under the new DSfence Bill was carried : — "That the Christchurch Prohibition League, representing not only the No-license Party, but in this matter the whole of the temperance sentiment of the city, expresses its simprise that the new Defence Bill submitted to the House of Representatives contains no provision for the abolition of the canteen. It views as quite inadequate tho suggested provision that persons under twenty-one years of age shall not be allowed .to enter canteens, and urges that the only satisfactory settlement of the question in the judgment of the majority of the electors of the Dominion will be tJie abolition of the system. It protests strongly against the continuance of a custom proved •to be not onjy unnecessary, but pernicious in the extreme, especially in view of the fact that the youth of the Dominion are to ibe compelled to enter the camps every , year, and it calls upon the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence,- and members of the House to amend the Bill in tEis particular at once."