THE LICENSING QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1914, Page 2

THE LICENSING QUESTION.

PROHIBITION AND THE EMPIRE. A GREAT ORGAN'S PREDICTION. (Financial News, London, Bth April, Tho correspondence which has been going on with regard to the everlasting alcohol question will ha.ye more than ordinary interest for observers of the progress of New Zealand. . . . Primarily, .of course, ,a. very heavy loss of revenue would be the most conspicuous aspect of the policy from the point .of view of investors on this side. They would naturally enquire how the I'few Zealand Government intends to fill the large gap in the revenue resulting from Prohibition. They would ask with the greater emphasis, first, because New Zealand is at present assiduous in her attentions to the London money market, and, secondly, because the teetotal fraternity would certainly oppose to the utmost any suggestion that they themselves should pay the e 4 \tra taxation precipitated by the adoption of their policy. But in the background there is the even mpre important enquiry : How far the adoption of Prohibition by the British Dominion might operate to weaken the Empire at that point? If human experience is correct in deducing from the phenomena of history the inference that, a teetotal people will never be a great people, then it is obvious that the teetotal element of a great race might easily evolve into its weakest factor The adoption of the Prohibition programme wpuld be certain to cause the greatest disquietude on this side.—Publish.cd by arrangement.