THE LICENSING ISSUE.

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1911, Page 8

THE LICENSING ISSUE.

(Published by arrangement)

[to the editor.] Sir. —To-morrow the electors will be called upon to decide whether this country is to go on producing a race of virile, honourable, and free irien, or to submit t:-. the odious despotism of the tyrannous prohibitionist. Are the temperate man and woman, who use only in moderation some of God’s choicest gifts to be degraded to the level of the typical prohibitionist who, whenever opportunity offers, revels in the consumption of any dish that mav be impregnated with a! oholic liquor? Because New Zealand--!be soberest country on the face of ‘»od s earth —contains a small number of degenerates whom.no human or divine, can permanently assist —for the truism,

• Natnran cspt'lles furca tamen usque recurret,” vou mav drive out nature with a pitchfork, and yet she will return, is as much in evidence to-day as it was in the time of Horace —must all the rest of its inhabitants be forcibly deprive !_ of their birthright, to enjoy whatever kind of beverage they please?

Because some two citizens in eve -y hundred get drunk, must a prohibition order be taken out against the other 58 ? The proposal is illogical, senseless, absud. It is condemned as being subver give of all the fundamentals of government by such statesmen as Joseph Chamberlain, John Stewart Mill, President Lincoln, and William Ewart Gladstone; it. is scouted by such eminent members of the medical profession as P. H. Pye Smith, of Guy’s, J. Burden Sanderson, of Oxford; Arthur Gamage, of Owen’s College; and Sir Michael Foster, of Cambridge, and it is held by such distinguished divines as Dr. Rankin, D. Lyman Abbott, Cardinal Gibbons, Pope Pius X., Lr. Salmond, and Henry Ward Beecher to be totally opposed to all the teaching of Jesus Christ.

“Prohibition is the greatest enemy to •< much-needed reform,” says Dr. Howard Crosby, an eminent Presbyterian minister. and in the words'of Dr. Rankin, another prominent member of the same p-r suasion, “it is based upon a sham. It 's absolutely without foundation in Scripline.’

Should the public be so thoughtless, r.ay, insane, as to vote no-license or naiionai prohibition, what would be the effect on the tradespeople, the workers, the temperate men and women, and on the public ih general? Loss of revenue, d location?of trade, dearer, food and clothing, increased taxation, local and national business stagnation, lack of ompvjyinent, loss of liberty, deep degradation, the broad arrow of the criminal- —all these are the inevitable results of no license. Are the voters aware that prohibition will affect thousands of workers besides those directly employed,,in .the licensing trade? Eleven thousand breadwinners and f orty thousand -dependents. are directly i engaged in the business.' Are jtheiri fellow citizens by their votes, going, to throw these cut of employment? Are tjiey going to make their own positions unsafe and their wages infallibly less? ; Local no license and Dominion Prohibition will!render oiir homesliable to a police raid at any time a prohibitionist suspects ’usi of having , in our cupboards the smallest quantity of alcoholic liquor. They prohibit the manufacture of blackberry, gooseberry or -any other kind of wine, of hop or chili beer, or any one op the) numerous beverages regularly manufactured by the economical and prudent'. housewife. " Let your readers bear in mind that this is not my interpretation of the law. It is the conclusion arrived at by stub an eminent jurist as Mr Chapman, Klt is Ihe publicly exvesscd conviction ri Sir John Findlay, K.G., and,Minister of Justice, who drafted the Bill and who sh-mld understand what he is talking about. Under prohibition, moreover, one would b? liable to a fine of £lO or- three month':’ imprisonment if one had in his possession only a single glass of beer. Will voters, will free citizens of a free country submit to such tyranny, “No,” a thousand times “No.” Moderate, temperate and sane men and women, I appeal to your sound common sense, turn a deaf ear to the ape-'ious pleadings and hysteria- of the prohibition no Romanian, and by voting for continuance and against national prohibition, preserve that liberty for which your foiefathers’ blood was so abundantly sl.e-.1. I am, etc., ■ , A LOVER OF TEMPERANCE.