PROHIBITION OR CONTINUANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 5

PROHIBITION OR CONTINUANCE.

[By G. L. Dennxston, President of the. Licensed Victuallers’ Association.] You have been good enough to give me space on previous occasions to ventilate my opinions on this, the burning question of the hour, and I again ask the favor. If I occupy too much of your space, it will be because it is difficult to compress the views one holds on such a large and complex question. In my judgment, the fallacy—and it is a huge one—that lies at the root of all the well-meant efforts of qur Prohibition friends is that the carrying of No-license will effect a reformation in the drinking habits of a community, and put an effectual stop to the evils that undoubtedly and admittedly accompany the use of intoxicating drinks. Did it do this, and were people convinced of the fact, there are many Moderate men and women—even those, perhaps, whom the change might pecuniarily affect injuriously —who are altruistic enough to sacrifice their principles and even their money for the betterment of humanity and the community of which, they form a part. This being so, one as'ks the question: Does the carrying of No-license extinguish or even diminish, I will not say open drunkenness (for this it possibly does), but the desire, for stimulants and the quantity consumed? In my judgment, which is formed from observation and considerable study of the printed evidence obtainable, the answer must be in the negative, and I proceed to give some reasons for this opinion. What is the present position in our own country? Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of conscientious worker's have for many years been spending themselves and their means in the crusade against stimulants, and have succeeded in carrying Prohibition over a large portion of the Dominion, especially in this provincial district. Have they extinguished the demand for stimulants, or even reduced it? Mr Lanrenson, member for Lyttelton, and himself a Nolicense .leader, gives the reply in Parliament, and on the 16th July quoted from the Customs returns the comparative returns of duties paid in 1897 and 1907—ten years apart. The figures are very remarkable, and surely convey a lesson of some kind. The duties paid , in the former year for beer and spirits amounted to £426,838, and in 1907 to £677,666, which means (adding the increase in duty on wines) an increase of £262,778, or more than 61 per cent., which is very much larger than the increase of the population in these ten years, which amounts to 200,428, or an increase of 26 per cent. Is this consumption of drink, represented by these figures, to be suddenly stopped by what may turn out to be an accidental Vote, influenced, it may be, by the weather on polling day, or some other fortuitous circumstance? Are the habits of a people to be thus changed in a day, and will they tamely submit to an enforced habit of living in such direct contrast and antagonism to that in which they have passed their lives? Reason and experience answer No. People who have used stimulants all their lives will continue to do so. To quote so sane an authority as the * Nineteenth Century,’ as everyone knows, oiTe of the leading magazines in England: “Whether public-houses ’are favored or not, they respond both’ to that desire for an occasional stimulant in some shape

tUTj rs\ •' 1 F 7VTTT or form. which-has influenced -mankind -in i--all lands and in all ages, and appears to be an essential part ot our nature;” And? the same_vyiter speaks of, H.tjjev. arduous, responsible, but _ apparently inextinguishable trade” (in stimulants). I am tempted to remark in passing how the arena of this controversy has ' been * " changed during recent Wears. We used to bear the Scripture quoted in defence of No-license, and puerile arguments were adduced to minimise the force of statements of the Bible evidencing the value of wine as one of the gifts of God;, while denouncing in the strongest terms its abuse. The Bible and Scriptural authority have dropped odt of the discussion, ana wine and kindred beverages are contemptuously summed up in the word “alcohol—that pernicious drug.” For my part, I regard wine, the product of the grape, beer and whisky, the product of good, honest barley, quite as much the gift of God to man as the product of the tea and coffee plant. Absurd comparisons have been made between the traffic in liquor and the opium traffic, on the assumption that both are equally deleterious to the human race. Opium is an evil thing, and always an evU thing, even when used- in moderation. Will anyone, except a bigot, say the same of honest beer I \ Labouchere, the “ Labby.” of ‘ Truth,’ regards beer as a wholesome and agreeable beverage, of which he would no more think of depriving those ■ who like it than forcing a teetotaller to swallow it, and it is well known that Fir Gladstone would take no part in repressive legislation on this subject, because he enjoyed a glass of wine himself, and could not conscientiously legislate to deprive ’ another of whatever beverage he chose to drink. To return to the vital question, Does Prohibition prohibit? We are asked to look at the result of this legislation in our own and other lands; and to learn from their experience. America is, of course, the chief centre of such experiments, and no one, I think, can say, after studying the literature on the subject which is available, that the States living under No-license are either more moral or less drunken than their neighbors where the public-house still flourishes. Some people have an unreasoning distrust of American facts and American figures, but just as I should believe without question an official return addressed to the head of his department signed by Mr O’Brien, our inspector of police, so I must believe the official returns sent in by police inspectors in those States which live under Nolicense. I will only say I have read the figures in the official books, and they appear to me to ‘be a reply to those who assert that No-license means no drink. But we are told, why go to America when object lessons are so near us ? It might be replied that Invercargill and Oamarn are in the experimental stage only, while America has had the experience of a generation; but take the towns named, and what do we find ? Has No-license extinguished or greatly lessened, if at all, the desire for stimulants in cither town. Take the return laid on the table of the House of Representatives on the motion of .Mr Arnold and find your answer there. And where has all that drink gone to? The dwellers in Invercargill have not poured it down the Puni Creek. It was not consumed in hotel bars, fop there are none, and an insignificant portion has been illicitly sold. Nearly all has gone into the homes of the purchasers, and it is left to your readers to judge where tue * greater danger lies, the casual and passing drinking in a hotel bar or the temptation of a constant supply in the home.' That cases of public drunkenness in a No-license town are fewer goes without saying. There are no bars from which inebriates must emerge into the public street and be noticed, but it by no means follows that drinking, and even drinking to excess, has been diminished.

To come nearer home, I wonder who, among the many who may coquette with the idea of voting No-lioense under a vague impression that it would hasten the millennium, and enables us to live in a sort of Utopia, has pictured to himself or herself what Dunedin would be like under Nolicense. How many can turn from an abstract idea and look at concrete facts? Were No-license carried in Dunedin and elsewhere one can picture deserted hotels (compensated perhaps by the crowded tea rooms), all the breweries shut up, and the hundreds of employees looking for other work. The hop-growers of Nelson must turn their gardens into strawberry fields. The thriving barley-growers of Picton and the Wakatipu flats must find another crop to harvest. When we give a distinguished fellow-citizen who is leaving us a send-off we will assure him he is a jolly good fellow to the tinkling of the tea cup or the gush of the gingerbeer; and when we marry our sons and daughters we shall, ignoring a well-known sacred precedent, give them our blessing, inspired by the same exhilarating beverages. YVhen we entertain visitors of note at dinner or banquet at club or hall we shall honor King and distinguished subject in the same sober, if joyless, fashion. There shall be no more cakes and ale, and ginger will bo no longer hot in the month.

My mind further pictures a stagnant town, avoided by country visitors, properly fearful of decent hotel accommodation, which even now is inadequate at show times or times of stress, for let people say what they will, temperance hostel ries do not and cannot give tho comforts and luxuries of hotels ; avoided also by tourists, who resent compulsory abstinence from tbedr customary modes of living and the enjoyment of luxuries which have been a life-long habit. That these consequences will follow will probably be denied, and opinions will, of course, differ, but I am informed on very good authority that except on special occasions the streets of Invercargill and Oamaru are much less frequented than under the old regime. I have sometimes wondered why this province has been made specially the target for our No-license friends, and why their chief artillery has been so persistently brought to bear against poor Otago. I had the pleasure some years ago to hear an eloquent speech by Lord Rosebery on the labor legislation of this Dominion, in the course of which he said: “In the days of Walpole, when any experimental legislation was to be introduced, he used to say ‘ fiat experimentum in corpore vili ’; let us try it upon Scotland.” Why is Otago chosen as corpus vilum? Are' we more drunken than our northern neighbors or softer in head or heart?