PROHIBITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 July 1939, Page 5

PROHIBITION

“DEAD ISSUE” SAYS MINISTER The opinion that Prohibition was practically a dead letter in the Dominion was expressed by the Rev. J. D. Smith, when presenting to the Auckland Presbytery the report of its temperance committee, states the “New Zealand Herald.” “There are some, reasons,” he said, “why one should be very deeply concerned about this matter of temperance. We all know that there has been a great slump in . interest in it, and that there is no likelihood within our generation that Prohibition will be revived as a really live issue. It is pretty dead at present, anyway. It affords no immediate prospect of dealing with the matter, and we should devote our attention in other directions.” Mr. Smith said one of the factors in the situation was that the consumption of drink in New Zealand was increasing at an alarming rate. The New Zealand drink bill had jumped from £5,000,000 in 1933 to £9,390,000 in 1938. That was not a tremendous increase upon the previous peak, before the depression, when the drink bill was a little over £8,000,000, but it was the highest that had been reached so far in New Zealand. The great bulk of the increase was in drinking of beer. On Mr. Smith’s motion it was decided to inquire which congregations had observed temperance Sunday and how far the Assem- ’ bly’s recommendation for the formation of Total Abstinence Leagues had been carried out.