PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN

Evening Star, Issue 18101, 17 October 1922, Page 3

PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN

. TWO ADDRESSES. A meeting in connection with tho Prohibition -campaign was held in the Methodist Church Hsul, Caversham, last night, when addresses wore delivered by the Yen. Archdeacon Russell (Oamaru) and Mr J. S. Baxter (Invercargill). Speaking from his experience of eleven years at Oamaru, the Archdeacon declared that if anyone said conditions were worse in No-license districts than in Licensed districts it was an absolute falsehood. He admitted that occasionally there was a. “ chivoo ” held, but it was -an exceptional thing, and the mass of the people_ did not come into contact with strong liquor at all. He quoted from a letter of Mr Mitchell (journalist, councillor, member of educational bodies), who, with forty years’ experience of Oamaru, had stated that the Increase in tho population of Oamaru during tho last five years, according to tho census, was higher than tho genera! average for the dominion; that, whereas there used to be a resident magistrate, it was now sufficient for a Dunedin magistrate to make a weekly visit; that, although in 1905 the council lost £BOO in License fees, it was able in the first year of No-license to reduce the rates by 3d in the £, although tho district was that year hit by a severe drought; that there had not been a case of bankruptcy for many years; and that softgoods shops, furnishers, fancy goods shops, booksellers, fruiterers, tea shops, and confectionery shops had increased greatly. Archdeacon Russell said his own experience of Oamaru boro out these facts. Mr Baxter said that when bo went to Invercargill forty-one years ago there were thirty-two bars, three wholesale licenses, two chartered clubs, six bottle licenses, and two breweries. He gave details of tragedies and deaths that he had known of during that time, and said that in sixteen years of No-license there had not been one single drunken tragedy. He declared that Prohibition at Invercargill had been an emphatic success, and quoted figures, which he said were compiled by a leading land agent, to show that the old hotels since they had been put to other uses had all increased greatly in value. In the first year of No-license the increase in the rates from these properties was £212.