TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Evening Star, Issue 12699, 27 June 1907, Page 2

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

[Published by Abbangemeot.]

ALCOHOL, OPIUM, AND BOCIAUBM*-

(Continued),

TbVsubject £or this weak .is the.harmfulness of alcoholic liquors, if sold for general consumption, under any system.

The main systems of sale that have been ■ried in the world are State control, muniripal control, disinterested " management ■under which head comes the Gothenburg system), low license, high license, and free sale.

State centred proper is only really in force in Russia, and even there the State does not do its own distilling. In India there, is a partial.syrttrm of "State control, 3ui \h'e licenses to'sjll are auctioned out : > private individuals, who are thus di'•>ctly incited to give such sums for the licenses that they push trade undiily to secure a return. South Carolina*, in the T'nited States, has abandoned her State dispensaries after fifteen years of a.vain attempt to sell liquor without hurting and destroying.her people- The advocates of State "control \rero lost election buried under, an overwhelming majority, and the people/of South Carolina are once more ou iht warpath fcr State Prohibition»L * ■■/■ * * *

As. Russia very clearly exemplifies, the nvain weakness of State control'as a reform is that there is no control tfv er the liquor ::s soon as it has passed over the threshold of the Government liquor shop. These ships'are, in Russia, kept as orderly as i st offic-s in New Zealand, all the liquor ym-r .mid in ssal-d bottles which must ;ot be opened o- dniTik on the premises. )Tisire, however, just as in our grocery 'tittle licenses httrts to-day, control ceases ;be moment the liquor is out of the .-.hop. Also (just as in the case of the N'ew Zua land bottle licenses), so long as a scto prison comes for the liquor ni st fiightfn' orgies may be restriti-.tg, but the" sale'will'go on unchecked.

Is it not, then, a misnomer to rtvjik of State control? Truly it is. when there is so little control about it. In Russia diun krrness is increasing fast, and lhe- ctjlv part of the revenue that is- growing is 'he drink revenue. Th.9 only po-isibie y,;ij in ■nhich any real measure of cnutr-)! tould b* exercised by the State -wo il;i • e 11 ,mske wlline for "off" conswnptirn illegal, and limit the spending of any man in any day to a given sum, hut even this does not promise anv great measure of success. In the 'Evening Star' of May 14 last it was stated that "in Norway it is forbidden to spend more than 10 cents übom sd'.in anv one.tavern." It 's list. rh r : rule in the "Samlags" of Norway that peisons shall not loiter. There arc :io Sf.its provided, and the men file through, cich t;ke their one drink ?nd go 'heir soveia! -p-rys.

'*** * * * Yet, in spite of: all these heroic mensures, the spirituous liquors do their deadly ■work in Norway, as of old, and the arrests per thousand in the Samlag towns are four or five times those of London, and twice or three times as many per thousand as in the English seaports. In the Swedish "Bolags" (the original Gothenburg system) food is compelled by law to be provided with the drink, and the men are supposed to be encouraged to sit and eat with their drink. Here the res-alts are even worse, for whereas the arrests in Bergen (Norway) are about 27 per I.OCO, the arrests in" Gothenburg (Sweden! are oboat 4S per I.COO, * * .* * * * The country people near both" of these places are under No-license by their own vote, and are the most sober people as a whole in the world. This applies to about five-sixths of the people of Sweden and ■Norway; and it is this increased sobriety that thVßolag and Samlag unwarrantably tak6 credit for.: Tha Samlag and Borlag , icaras axe not permitted by law to vote . on* the whole trade in intoxicating liquors. ' ThSy can only vote owt the Samlags, after : ylrich the trade in beer and wine remains. as this partial clearance is, about half ths Samlag towns have done it Thev are now agitating that the companies control all drink, so that they can Tote it all out together.

The above instances do not show well ?or tha Samliar or Bolag systems, ov for State control, but -these, so far ?s T know, are all the instances there are. Municipal control only has ono example, to my knowledse, and that in "Athens,"' in the Stat* of rt?orji». Looted .->'. :?'--"

Oti point oi '•jew oi giving revenue t" th- 1 city, this eTrpsrirnent- is n stiecess. It hsr EO far d'banched th» «""*'"i ■;- that all the people say with onn .-• cord : "Yes, we know it is br.ri, but ho-*- m '■;icatT- do without the money?" Tlr.is thi.. thing is perpetnated. It is just as ir-.-.y or more easy to d-?ba!ich the pub'.ir ••t.iscience as to soothe the conscience of th» private individual. ♦ *,-?**>

Dr E E J?prmrd. B.ipti-st minister •■:" Athens, and cditr.r of the 'Southern A'i▼aiice,' »5j a few years ago-. "I rrii! < v t" yon. sir: that I helped to establish zhf di-pennry I believed it wt-rit! b." tett«T than the open bir room, and ihour-ht that it was the ot.ly choice befor> us. lam eorry that I did it. Iterssults, as I /havo been them durimr the past yc-irs, do T,n[ justify its cs+ablsslurent." Ttr four;!.-.-, have "lost confidence in it, but thf jy;np!e'--ccnScience is debauched, and «> They have laired up a Frankenstein which nuir they cannot stay. May God preserve New Zealand from snch a terribh? mistake.

Last of the "systems ** we have the " disbaferested management" idea, whkrh is being most energetically prsbed in England just now by the Earl Grey Companies, -»rhile some of these " company hotels" are clanned as successful and as having reduced the drinking of alcoholic liquors and increased the sale of tea and coffee and nonalcoholic drinks; others are failures, and failures of a very bad type. Several of the managers, hitherto respectable men (in one ease a minister), have become addicted to drink In several cases lately, too, they have been accused of allowing drunkenness 03 the premises, and Sunday trading has been proved against them. Generally speaking, the mass of the temperance workers in Eagland utterly repudiate the idea that "company marageraent" has any value as a real reform. In fact, they declare that it makes drinking apparently more respectable, and so, in reality, more dangerous, and would, if it became general, indefi3lit«3y postpone Hcccse. « * « » . * . *

-IB efforts in these directions, in short, go to pro-re tha*, so Ions; as the individual is allowed to please hinrself as to the; quantitv of liquor he buys, or so"long~a& he is able to take his liquor away from cihefplace, •there is ro real advance towards narmlessnecs in liquor-felling. The only real advance chronicled from any part of the-world invariably results from an application oi the pioh'ibitory principle—i.e., limitation of hoars, limitation of quantity" sold, reduction of numbs' of licenses, or abolition of them altogether. Total abolition from;a country and the prevention oi importation jot maintenance has never yet been tried on any large scaleTHE "HEATHEN" I/KADS THE CHRISTIAN. The drastic measures adopted by the King of Abyssinia to enforce the prohibition of liquor aie well known, and we also know how eanuwt the best of the Maoris are in their desire to see our noble natives protected, and rx>w the Red Indians axe jetting us the saxae exampleLost year the Congress of the United Elates approved proposals whereby the people of Oklahoma, and of the Indian Territory could form a Constitution and become the nsw State of Oklahoma. A conventio- Las just been holding meetings, in accordance with the disections of Congress. The Indian Territory waa given 55 repretentatives, Oklahoma, the same number, and the Osage Nation bod two representatives. Oklahoma tent its politicians with cut-and-%ied schemes. The Indians cent their beet representatives, educated at the. liciverziticsj. rich, and" skated" m canmeroa. Tl»ey were joined by the two fimm wmsy,nwd.»lw>lg-»email setting, of;

the Okh!h«ma delegates. Tho Indian saxri,torj delegates and their feiejioVha|Ve> thus, secured a good •working majority, in tha first - Lcgisfciiuie. Pxwiously. th« liquor traiHc has been barred in Indian The Indians have now resolved tMt Ptx* hibition shall bo part of tho new tion lor tho. whole State, much. to. the* chagrin of tho white brewers of Oklahoma, j