THE TEMPERANCE SIDE.

Evening Star, Issue 18032, 28 July 1922, Page 6

THE TEMPERANCE SIDE.

Mr H. S.- Adams, president in Dunedin of the United Temperance Reform Council, .said, when seen by a reporter: I have had only an opportunity of running through the report hurriedly, and in what 1 say I am voicing my own opinions, which are not authoritative from tho New Zealand Alliance. In so far as tho ■report advocates further restrictions on the trade, it docs not appear to me to be of any great public importance. Wo do not care very much how the trade is restricted. Tho question is not so much restriction as enforcement. Whatever restrictions aro sought to bo imposed, the trade will, as in tho past, do its utmost to find a way round. The report is, I understand, the report of a majority of one, and amounts to no more than the opinions of so,many gentlemen who aro in favor of the licensed trade. If one or two other members had been added to the committee tho report would have been totally different'in form. Tho Alliance is always opposed to anything which will increase the facilities for drinking, also to anything which will increase the partnership of the people in the trade through tho revenue. Wo would accordingly object to the proposal involving either of these things—such as tho redistribution of licenses,, higher license fees, and so on. The question of higher license fees is only a matter of taxation. The attitude of the committee is most strikingly shown by the proposals to re-estab-lish tho delay of four years in enforcing Prohibition and to exclude 3 per cent, beer from Prohibition. The National Efficiency Board recommended the country to pay four millions sterling to the trade to secure immediate enforcement. That is sufficient condemnation of the present suggestion as to delay; and, as to the 3 per cent, beer prohibition, that does not prohibit. The report requires careful consideration, but its chief proposals would, I think, bo totally opposed to the wishes of the Now Zealand Alliance.