THE PROHIBITIONIST PLATFORM.

Evening Star, Issue 9161, 16 June 1893, Page 1

THE PROHIBITIONIST PLATFORM.

On Wednesday evening the Rev. E. Walker, of the New Zealand Alliance, addressed a public meeting in the Moray place Congregational Church Hall, arranged for by the Christian Band of that church. Mr Walker said the object of the New Zealaui-. Alliance was to secure such an alteration of the law as would enable the people in their several localities to determine by a majority of votes at the ballot box whether or not licenses for tbe sa?e of liquor should be granted. This movement for legislative temperance reform was making great progress throughout the Eng-lish-speaking world, and In New Zealand in particular. In America seven States prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquors—namely, Maine, Kansas, lowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In these seven States there was a total population exceeding five millions. In tweuty-five other States the people had direct veto powers, by which they were able in municipalities and counties to determine by a majority vote at the ballot-box whether or not licenses should be granted, and in these States these powers were being very successfully used for the suppression of the liquor traffic. For example, hi Arkansas, out of seventy-five counties, forty-two have been cleared of the liquor traffic by tie direct veto vote. Massachusetts, Cambridge of Harvard University fame, with a population of 78,000, has for the last seven years voted no license. The majority against liquor last December was the largest yet recorded. Lynn, .with a population of 60,000, voted no license. Waltham, where the celebrated Waltham watches are made, was another large city which voted no license. Five other large cities, with populations ranging from 23,000 to 40,000, also prohibited liquor selling namely, Brokton, Newton, Maldon, Quincey, and Somerville. Boston, the largest city in Massachusetts: ■ had ft population rif 450,000, or more than two-thirds of the population of the whole of New Zealand. In 1890 there was a majority of 15,000 for liquor ; in 1891 this majority was reduced to 4,01)0, and in 1892 to 1,000 odd; so that when the question is voted on in December next "It is probable that that great city also will prohibit the liquor traffic. It thus hr.ipeued that in these twenty-five local option or direct veto States another 5,000,000 Americii.i citizens had rid themselves of the incubus of the liquor traffic. These, with the populations of the Prohibition States, make a total of 10,000,000 whowerc at the present time living under the prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. In Canada a million and a-half of people liad put their personal signatures to petitions praying Parliament to enact Prohibition throughoutthe dominion. The Dominion Parliament had therefore appointed a royal commission to make inquiry and report on the operation of prohibition law. The report, when published, would be one of immense value to temperance reformers throughout the world, as a vast amount of important information respecting Prohibition in the American States had been collected. Recent elections in the province of Manitoba were decided in favor of this Canadian demand for Prohibition. In India an important organisation • had Ijecn created within the last few years known as the Anglo-Indian Temperance Association, having for its object the prohibition of liquor and opium trafficks throughout the dependency. It had spread over the country like wild-fire, as it appealed to the religious principles, not only of the vast Mahomedan population, but also of the upper castes of Hindoos, which, forbade the use of alcholic liquors. Already its growing power had been felt in two important directions—namely, the abolition ot the provision by which liquor licenses were granted to those who contracted to dispose of the greatest quantity of liquor, and the granting of licenses for the sale of opium only to be not consumed upon the premises. It was intended by the Association to appeal to the British Government for complete prohibition of both these traflicks throughout our Indian Empire. In the United Kingdom the progress of the movement had been such that the Liberal party had made the Direct Veto a plank in their political platform at the recent General Election, and a majority of the new House of Commons had been returned pledged to this reform. Mr Gladstone, in one of his election addresses, said : " Gentlemen, you know that as far as the Liberal party are concerned they are determined, as one man, to place in the hands of the local communities the power to put an end to a traffic which they believe in a multitude of instances to be detrimental and pernicious in tl:c highest degree to the social and moral as well as the physical life of uhc community." A Direct Veto Bill, introduced by the Government, was at the present time Wore the House of Commons. In New Zealand similar progress was being made. At the late licensing elections a number of contests were run on Prohibition lines, and prohibitionist committees were returned in at least a dozen places, which were enumerated m the last Alliance annual report, that by the Borough of Sydenham by a twothirds majority. At Dimedin the contest was very close. Thousands of votes were polled on cither side, and it needed but twenty-fire persons to change sides to carry Prohibition for the whole city. The recent adverse deciuon of the Appeal Court in the Sydenham case had greatly helped the movement by increasing the demand for the Direct Veto. The Chief Justice declared that if the candidates for the Sydenham Committee had held that for local retioas it was desirable that all licenses should be refused, and upon that ground had been returned to carry.„out that policy, and had accordingly refused all licenses, they would have been doing what the law contemplated ; but simply because they were judged to be universal Prohibitionists the Court held them incapable of deciding in respect to Sydenham in particular, notwithstanding that they bad ■ been returned by a two-thirds majority to carry out that policy, thus practically disfranchising a large majority of tbe Sydenham constituents. Tbe decision had produced a great revulsion throughout the country, and the Liberal associations were now making the Direct Veto a plankin their platform for the parliamentary General Election, to come off next November. The ' Prohibitionist' newspaper had acquired a fortnightly issue of 23.00Q copies, thus reaching about 70,000 readers, whose votes wouhj tell powerfully at the next elections. Pjfl hibition leagues for licensing districjbyjH

beeu springing up in all directions, and these were proposed to be federated in the several electorates for parliamentary purposes, the Central Committee representing the several leagues in each electorate to be in communication with the New Zealand Alliance Office as headquarters. Mr Walker spoke of the work that the Women's Christian Temperance Union were doing, and rcfetved to the position of the woman's franchise question, giving illustrations of the ruin and wreckage wrought by the liquor traffic iu the community generally and among the publicans in particular, and appealed to his audience to bestir themselves in some form of effective work to help forward the genera! movement for temperance reform. He dealt with popular objections to the legislative suppression of the liquor traffic. The principal popular objections to local Prohibition affected t'-e questions of personal liberty, public accomn odation, the labor employed by the traffic, a market for the farmer's barley and other grain, sly grog-selling, and revenue. It was asked, supposing a majority approved of suppressing the drink traffic, what right had they to interfere with the liberty of the rest by removing the facilities for getting liquor '. The reply was that if the liquor-drinkers taken as a whole (and it was impossible to deal with them otherwise) would do their drinking without involving others in cost and injurious consequences there would be no political right of interference with them. But if the whole community was involved in costs for the crime and destitution produced by the drinking, and in a number of other ways was injuriously affected by it, the whole community had a political right to defend itself from the injury by a voice and a vote respecting the drinking, just as a municipality had a right to interfere with the liberTy of people to amuse themselves with fireworks on account of the recklessness of seme who indulged in that amusement. Again they were asked: How would accommodation for the travelling public be provided if liquor licenses swere not granted? In the judgment of many the travelling public would be very much better pfc-vided for if no one was allowed to provide public board who had a license to sell liquor. In many country places where it was supposed the travellers' need would be the greatest in this respect the condition of things at licensed houses was such as to render thcni quite unfit places for a man to take his wife and children to, and therefore correspondingly unfit for himself. But the fact that the licensed houses were tliere blocked the way to more" respectable accommodation beiug provided. On the other hand, he had recently been where boih licensees and pii vate persons catered for the visiting public., and found, where lie had himself stayed, that both a brewer and a publican from other parts of the colony preferred the accommodation where there was no sale of liquor. Then we are asked: What.would become of the labor employed in the manufacture, etc., of liquors "if the traffic was destroyed? The answer was that no business-: made so large a return to capital aud so small a return to labor as does the liquor traffic. Mr W. S. Caine, M.P., was shown over a brewery in which a million of capital was invested, which employed only 660 men, Mr Cane was himself interested in iron ore works in which only a quarter of a million of capital was invested* which employed 1,200 men; so that if the £1,000,000 invested in the brewery had been invested ii» the iron ore works it would have employed not 660 men, but 4,BC'J. Similarly, the manufacture of the iron into articles for use and the sale of these articles employed vastly more people than the distribution of the liquor for a given amount of capita! invested. If the liquor traffic were suppressed the capital invested in it would have to find other channels of investment, and, therefore, to engage an enormously increased amount of labor. They were also asked : If the liquor traffic were suppressed where would the farmer' find a market for the produce now consumed in manufacturing alcoholic drinks? The following facts showed how immensely the fanner would profit by the suppression of this traffic:— In 1880 (and probably things had not greatly improved since) 3,500,000 people in the United Kingdom applied for parish relief, audit was estimated that about 7,000,00' r more were on the verge of destitution—this destitution mainly, nay, almost wholly, dinto the fact that in the United Kingdom over £300,000,000 of capital were invefcled in the liquor traffic, which otlienvi.se invested would employ an enormously increased amount of labor; and thai upwards of 140,000,000 of money was annually squandered, and largely by the most wretched of the people, upon drink. If the drink traffic were abolished there would, therefore; be not merely thousands but millions of people (now destitute) in a position to properly supply themselves with food and clothing, thus consuming au increased amount of the farmers' produce even more vast than the enormous amount of good food stuffs now destroyed to make alcoholic' liquors for a starving people, needing not to be drenched but to be fed. Similarly in New Zealand the bulk of our destitution and diminished purchasing power was due to our squandering over £2,000,000 annually on drink. So, also, in other countries where our markets were. Then they were told that if they abolished the licensed sale of liquor sly grog-selling would produce an increased consumption of liquor, which was very like telling them that if they increaesd the difficulty of getting liquor people would get it more easily. The fact, however, wa3 that there could not be as much sly grog-selling without license as was now carried on under license. All " lambing down "by publicans, all serving of drunken men, all serving out of licensed hours and illicitly on Sundays, was neither more nor less than sly grog-selling. For the publicans had no license to do any of these things, yet they were being always done almost everywhere, and with such impunity that scarcely ever a conviction Mas secured for this violation of the liquor law. And why? Because of the enormous financial interests created the moment a license was conferred. The moment the license was conferred the owner of the property found its value greatly increased, the mortgagee found the value of his security increased, the brewer and the spirit merchant found profitable extensions of their business provided, and though not one of them cared for the licensed tenant personally, they were all interested in preventing his conviction, however great : a law-breaker ho might be, lest his license should be endorsed and unlimately taken away, aud they all lose these great advantages. These men, put together over the whole country, constituted a very numerous, wealthy, and influential body, sufficiently powerful to corrupt public administration from top to bottom. Some were J.P.s, some M.H.R.B, sometimes some of them occupied the Ministerial benches, and besides they had many personal friends occupying these positions. Thus the police were powerless, and lawless sly grog-selling under license holds on its uninterrupted way. Respecting revenue, Mr Walker said that the national loss through drink and personal ruin, with corresponding charges upon the public, were such that revenue from such a source did not represent gain to the national exchequer, but positive impoverishment. In other words, if the increase perityand^j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H