PROHIBITION MEETING AT MOSGIEL

Evening Star, Issue 15480, 30 April 1914, Page 9

PROHIBITION MEETING AT MOSGIEL

A number of resident? assembled at the, Sa.pti.st Ohuroh, Mosgwl,, hfib evening to hear- an address by tho Kev. J. Dawson on Prohibition. The chair was occupied by the Kev. C. Bhur (Method, ist). The speaker said License was proved to be a failure in J<ew Zealand • Regulation had been carried out jiot'onjy in tW houses kept, but the men carrying on the business. According to 'Haiisard.' (p. 366), ho said in 1911 there were 60 breweries in New Zealand, employing 741 hands, and paying in wages £109,544. while the profits wore £250,000 on 'a- subscribed capital of £477,000. It was not the toiler who secured the benefitThe brewing trade paid the smallest percentage of wages of all other trades,. The revenue question was often, raised, bu.t he. assured the audience that the liquor business cost the" country more than it got back iu revenue. £BOO,OOO a year came in as revenue, and he went on to instance the cost to the country of the institutions, asylums, and prisons. The Government pViic! 10s per head on al,l tho 170 men, and 'women at Pakatoa and Hoto Roa. This institution was kept up by th<| Salvation Army to try to reform uiebriatesJ grand work, he said, but it would be better to carry out the suggestion of an American journal, when commenting on these islands: that it would be- more profitable to the country to lock up ail the. liquor on these two so as to pre vent other people becoming victims and being a burden on the country. In reference to sly grog-selling, hei said there was a very email percentage of cases in Xolioenso areas compared with licensed districts. The" consumption of liquor in License areas par- family was 59ga-I, white in No-license areas it was only 9gal. The nation's best asset was not itsi commerce or ij£ wealth, but its people-r-its women, Its, men, and children.' ||e outlined the plan of campaign-—local * convention on June 3, and Dominion June 23 to 25 when he hoped there would be a march on Parliament of ItQQOl t QQO strong of representatives of all over the Dominion, as he had arranged with the Pyemjer to receive a deputation. After customary votes of thanks the Benediction was pronounced. The last of these meetings will be. held tq-n'ight in the Town Hall, South Dunedin, when the R9Y-. J. Dawson aiid Mr H. D. Bedford will speak.