THE DRINK BILL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 78, 2 April 1914, Page 2

THE DRINK BILL

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — I am never afraid to attach my personality to anything 1 write relative to no-license by signing my name, and it would be enlightening if others would do the same. " Septimus G " quite clouds the issue. I never suggested, as he admits by quoting my statistics, that "no grog is sold in no-license areas." The hard fact, not " reached by a devious method of circumlocution " but by Government records, is that drinking has been reduced by 75 per cent, by the closing x>f the public bar, and this allows, as I previously stated, some amount of sly grog-selling. A further set of Government records will be interesting to your readers, relative to drunkenness in " dry " areas. There-are eight such where Magistrates' Courts exist. In these electorates are 101,734 residents, and the total convictions for drunkenness for 1913 were 408. It lias frequently been proved beyond controversy that the majority of those who were arrested came fiom the license area^ intoxicated. Even &o. when compared with other areas these figures tell a startling tale. Gisborne has a population of 14,023. and had 404 convictions in 1913. Tabulated, these figures stand thus: "-Dry," 101.734 residents, 408 convictions; " wet," 14,023 residents, 404 convictions ;— or seven times as many in "wet" as in "dry." This, Sir, is why 259.043 electors believe that it is in the interests of the Donu'nion that the liquor traffic should cease entirely. — I am, etc., WM. H. HINTON. Ist April, 1914. ,> [This correspondence is now closed.]