LIQUOR RFERENDUM.

Gisborne Times, Volume L, Issue 5137, 1 April 1919, Page 6

LIQUOR RFERENDUM.

AN AMERICAN CITIZEN’S VIEWS

Mr. W, D. Lysnar states that he has just received a letter from an American citizen at present m the Dominion, who states that he is 85 •years of age, and seeing that rne prohibitionists are making a «andle of the American views on this question, he (Mr. Lysnar) thinks it advisable to publish the following extract from the letter

Your opinions re above as expressed in articles in Herald and Star here last week are mine exactly, but being a citizen of tho United Stated of America I reckon the latter part of your artice in reference to that country and the war might well havo ben omitted, as I can’t see any analogy between the war and prohibition. and I can bring as many reas* ons why it was better for the Allies that the U.S.A. did not enter the war sooner as you do against prohibition. Anyway, I know something of the Maine Liquor Law which has been in force in that State since 1851, and that is that there never has been any trouble in getting as much liquor as anyone wanted, but it hau cost more and been a much worse article than before the law was passed, and although tlife sellers Itave been fined again and again, the profits are so big that the safe still goes on. I will now give you an extrat from letter received last |*eel;: 1 Jan, 2ml 1919. •Say, Bill that the big se#fr‘'is over whatlhH onelto write abofit ? Nothing”WfVinteJek;t seems ito fill the void7\ Tke./Cme big eveilt on here of > VcentVaufc has been tin/ waiting for r9turnf\frpffin the various Legislatu rm, Stssfiqn regarding the vote on tho National Prohibition. An anßrmatfco neededfeo and July Ist next Joh\ 1$ neytorn will have ‘kicked in.’ 3®His mSans the confiscation of millions of dollars worth of property and ''iujndreds of thousands of our people thrown out of employment. The saloon will vanish from American life, hut what will fill the social vacuum it leaves,_ we know not. The recreation of getting drunk, on good liquor will be a thing of the past, but in its stead I am afraid there will grow up an awful army of drug fiends. This State is going to get a terrific kick as we have thousands upon thousands of acres under vine cultivation.” I guess my friend takes . a very pessimistic view of the business, as the same thing will happen in all these no-liquor States as _ has happened in Maine, and as will happen here if no-liquor is carried. There will be plenty of sly-grog selling and smuggling. . Drugs and other stuff far worse than liquor will be used, the lunatic asylums and gaols will ’soon want enlarging, and the last state of the countries involved will be worse than the first. No man or body of men on this earth will ever make me believe that the g American and British _ nations would ever have reached their present tions as rulers of the world 1 on cola tea. No, sir, good beer as liquor has done the trick, and though I may not live to see it, before many years of no-liquor are over P™ 1 ® ! n the countries who carry it will begin to deteriorate and that rapidly, further fail to see that anv law whoch mav be carried by a small tyrannica majority should prevent me or any other person from drinking anything that we may consider good for us-

(Published by Arrangement.)