CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 31 August 1928, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

LIGHT WINES AND BEER (To the Editor.) Sir, —In your issue of the 25th August a letter appeared from the New Zealand Alliance adversely criticising the Canadian. State Control system, and stating'that, in, Quebec, drunkenness had increased SO per cent, in 1927 aa against 1926. As the latest figures available in official reports did not go beyond 1i)26, we took the liberty of cabling to the Hon. L. &.'. Taschereau, Prime Minister of Quebec, asking whether this statement was correct. We have received the following reply:— "Statistics of convictions for drunken- ■ ness for whole of Quebec Province in. ■ 1927 not yet known. The last official figures published refer to 1928, and show a decrease of over 50 per cent., from 11,863 in 1920 to 5364 in 1926. In the metropolis of Montreal the same improvement has taken place, monthly arrests for drunkenness falling from 634 in 1920 to 245 in 1926. During the summer months of 1927 a sudden increase took place due to the floating population, but was not maintained, the last months of the year being normal. The number of monthly arrests in Montreal in consequence of this summer crisis was 388 in ■ 1927, showing, however, a great improve* ment on 1920—that is, before the adoption of the Liquor Control Act. For the first six months of 1928 Montreal* monthly arrests for drunkenness have averaged 272, a figure quite satisfactory if increase in floating population is taken into account.—(Sgd.) L. A. Tasehereau." ' There, is no need to comment further, on , the New Zealand Alliance statement othev than to point to the inaccuracy of its implications, but, if we might impose on you for the space, we would like to amplify the Quebec Prime . Minister's cable by quoting oriefly from the 1927 Report of the Quebec Liquor Commission. .This shows that in 1920, the last year before Liquor Control, the drunkenness figures were 11,863. In 1921, when the new system became operative, tha. figure dropped to 9944, and has since shown the following temperance trend year by year:—7lo3 for 1022, G2GO for 1923, 6146 for 1924, 6342 for. 1925, 5364 for 1926. Taken on the population basis, Quebec shows an even more remarkable temperance record •than New Zealand. We are justly proud of the fact that our last returns showed the offence of drunkenness in New Zealand to be only a little over 4 per thousand of • population. Quebec's figurt. for. 1926, as shown on page 72 of the Report, was only a little over 2 per thousand of population. When we compare this with the position in the United States to-day under Prohibition the superiority of the State Control system as a temperance measure is1 at once manifest. The Anti-Saloon League Year Book of 1925 gave a table showingl the drunkenness statistics for some 300 U.S.A. cities up to the year 1923.: These showed that in the fourth year o£ Prohibition the drunkenness rate per thousand of population waa 14.7. It will be seen that the drunkenness rate in the U.S.A. is at least six times heavier than in Quebec. From official information that we have received it is demonstrated that drunkenness has tremendously increased in the United States since that period. For the year 1927 some of the American cities show appalling records. 'Scranton, Pennsylvania, shows a drunkenness record of 54 per thousand population; Atlanta, Georgia, 49 per thousand; and Portland, Maine, after seventy years of Prohibition, over 25 per thousand When we compare the foregoing figures it will be seen at once that we have no real drunkenness problem in New Zealand. , It is, however, demonstrable, from the experience of the Canadian Provinces, that our record of temperance, splendid as it is, will be capable of improvement under a system of State Control.—l am, etc., R. A. ARMSTRONG, ' ■Dominion Secretary, the N,Z, Licensing Reform Association. . • 30th August. „. ■■•■■■'■■•■