THE LICENSING ISSUE.

Evening Star, Issue 20020, 10 November 1928, Page 6

THE LICENSING ISSUE.

Politics is only politics to some people who will go to tho polls next week, hut (mother matter to bo considered there, that of Prohibition, is much more than that; Prohibition is a religion. National salvation from all troubles, it is firmly believed, will bo surely found if only a majority of those who now drink to excess, and of those who do not, will eschew, and force others to eschew, alcoholic liquors. hrom the emphasis which is laid ou it and tho zeal professed for it that now “dry ” commandment might bo judged to have been given first place before all the other Commandments by its ardent votaries. They have been not less concerned to make it dominate the churches than to make. it dominate Parliament. It is a simpler faith even than that of Socialism. A new Eden is to bo made by compulsion, the coercion of tho minority by a majority, however small and unstable that might bo. It would be on the opposite principle from tho original Eden, which had the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in tho midst of it, and was based on free will. Morality and prosperity- would bo made easy for everyone—in theory—and tho Golden Age which never was would como again. Tho creed does not need, at this stage, long discussion to expose its fallacies. Eor a long time now it has been preached. An increasing number of people, wo believe, have grown tired of the argument, which is unconvincing. New Zealand is not a drunken country. It is one of the most sober ones, probably, in the world.. Its whole tendency is to become more sober. In Great Britain, also, where the advocates of Prohibition have bud less hearing, tho whole tendency is towards more sobriety. People who have more pleasures than they used to have aie le,ss tempted to drink recklessly. People who have to compete harder in a more complex world cannot afford to do so. People who drive motor cars in increasing number do not dare, if their own lives have any value for them, to bcfuddlo their wits. ’ Enormous industry' and enormous funds have been put into this Prohibition movement. Every three years, by convulsive offensives, and all the time between by less violent agitation, tho country has been harassed by it. It would lie hard to show that any progress has been made by it since the issues wore placed on their present basis. The vote for Prohibition in 1919 was 49.70 per cent, of tho total votes cast. Tu 1922 it was 48.58; and in 1925 it was 47.35. The only vote which has appreciably increased by the percentage test in that time bus been the small vote for State Purchase and Control, which was suspected to have been artificially swollen by Continuance votes on tho last occasion with intent to keep the middle issue alive. Even some Prohibitionists must have been forced to the conviction that their money and labour would have been batter spent over a long period of years if they had been applied to a different cause—better teaching of temperance, for example, and the removal of those anomalies in the hcpxor traffic to which no attention can ho given at the present time, while a vain hope is hold that liquor can he abolished. There arc no short cuts to morality. Tho greatest hope for Prohibition was that it would prove a short out, if not to universal temperance at least to some sort of substitute ior it Mhich in practice might serve as well. Ibe futility of that expectation is no longer a matter of argument. In more than one country Prohibition lias been tried. In some countries where it has been tried it has proved so great a failure that there has been nothing to do except go back on if, as in Canada .and Norway, In no country has it been able to operate as morn than class legislation. A school rending book, of the typo by which Mr MacManus is impressed, ‘ My Magazine 5 for September last, tells us of its failure to bo more than that in Finland. It is enforced against tho working classes and tho poor. “But there is no doubt that the Jaw- is largely evaded in Helsingfors itself. . . . The police say they

have no time to bother with tho people m the big hotels, who can afford to get drink somehow if they want to; they are busy seeing that the poor men who cannot afford it do not obtain it.” In America it is anything but a short cut. It took fifty years or thereabouts to get it. For eight years its enforcement has begn a problem. Now Lady Astor, who is an American ami a .Prohibitionist, tolls us that it may take fifty years to make It successful, and on that point Lady Astor may he expected to know. A common opinion appears to he that tho .Prohibition cause in tips country is more likely to go back than forward at next week’s polls, and in the light of America’s experience that is a reasonable expectation.