A PRESSING NEED

Gisborne Times, Volume L, Issue 5138, 2 April 1919, Page 5

A PRESSING NEED

“BROAD, HUMAN, SANE IDEALISM.”

REV. H. GARTER ON LIQUOR PROBLEM IN BRITAIN.

HOW SOCIAL EMANCIPATION CAN ONLY BE ATTAINED.

There are many people—very many people—in this Dominion wUo are sick and tired of having to listen to American advice on the Liquor question. It seems to them that New Zealand should rely chiefly on the Motherland for guidance on this vexed'problem. Naturally so. Would New Zealand go to the United States for advice on any other social question-' Assuredly not. The United States never was the home of true* social emancipation, and judging byresults in the past it will never attain that high position. All widely read and widely-travelled people knoAV the United States for Avhat it is—a land of make-believe; a land of fads and faddists; a land noted for corruption. Have the people _ of New Zealand lost faith in the. ability of their Homeland to lead the Avorld in social progress? No—a million voices should re-echo: “No.” Pa-, triotism alone should dictate that the electors of this fair and prosperous young land should turn to the Dear Old Motherland for sound advice oh the Liquor Problem.

LABOR AND LIQUOR.

WHY BRITAIN INAUGURATED REFORMS. Let this not be forgotten: Britain leads all other nations to-day with it s constructive policy of Temperance reform. It will, therefore, be refreshing to the minds of electors made weary by all the humbug that has been talked about America and its farcical proposal to adopt National Prohibition to learn what is being achieved in Britain to-day under her new- policy of liquor trade reform. This subject is dealt with in a most interesting manner by the Rev. Henry Carter, M.A., in a work that has just been published by Messrs Longmans, Green and Co. —a work which has met with so much approval from Lord d’Abernon, cnairman of the Board of Liquor Control, that he has honored it with a graceful preface. According to the author, British public opinion during the war became tired of the eternal wrangle over the drink question tired"of seeing the temperance question made an external and bitter struggle between the Trade and an irrational and extremist teetotal party anxious to force a ichange to which four-fifths of the worKingclasses were opposed. J j. EFFORT TO CAIN/#® /] efficiency. BUT} NOT BY RfIfOHjBITIONISTS’ a If METHOD f “Tile methods adopted to give i«ffestMo the policy,” says thejftev. Mr §fcarterf\ “Had behind thqsfi the backing of /strong public jjpinion, vjhrai embraced {the bulk all temperance reformers —as distinct from the extreme teetotal and prohibition parties, which at sorryr stages hampered and at the board’s operations. 3 ...“When the Central Control Board was seen attempting to deal with the British drink traffic on lines of national efficiency, and With a single eye to the health, comfort, convenience and sobriety\of tile masses of the workers', British public opinion, as a whole, came finally and solidly behind its operation^# SPLENDID TANGIBLE RESULTS. AN UNPARALLELED RECORD. As to the tangib|e resuk s achieyed under Britain’s si|6cessfid \ constructive reforms the Rdv. Mr Carter says, in his book, that they consist not only in the complete elevationw. /he social habits of millions of British people, but in such a reduction in convictions for drunkenness as i 9 without parallel. The Central Board did not abolish drunkenness; it did, nevertheless, effect profound changes in the drinking habits of large classes. In 1913, the year before^ the war there were in Lngland and \\ ales 190,000 convictions for drunkenness; in 1916, under the Control Board's system, there were fewer than 90,000 Thus was effected a reduction of over 100,000 convictions for drunkenness in a single year! W wft T FOR TEMPER- , ‘ ANCE. NOT PROHIBITIONISTS AND THEIR “POULTICES.” The Rev Mr Carter makes a strong point of the necessity of treating the difficulties to be solved in connection with Liquor trade reform as one bound up with the entire social reform ideals of a people, not as an isolated trouble to be poulticed by amateurs or quacks, who know little of the limits of human nature. “The drink question should not be regarded.” he writes, in his final chapter, “as isolable from the whole problem of social well-being, of which it is an integral part. Whatever enhances the wholesomeness of life makes for temperance.” With an eye to the special situation in England, he goes on to declare that “it is essential that a way shoud be found for the State, unimpeded by private, interests, to determine in accord with the will of the peope the drink policy ot the future.” Without dogmatising or blindness to financial difficulties, Mr. Carter recommends State purchase and local option as the means by which the State may remove the barrier to reform set up by _ private interests, and at the same time give the democracy an avenue to express itself. , , There are indeed many lessons ror New Zealand in Mr. Carter s book, which is a timely contribution to the literature of social emancipation. Summed up, his valuable Mews amount in bis own weighty words to tt S } The pressing need of tc-day is a oroad human, sane ulerdism which realises that the moderate consumption of fermented is no sin, and that the soml and fraternal instincts of the of mankind must have neslthycut lets and adequate institutions for their expression.” If New Zealand is to advance every elector should on April 10 STRIKE OUT THE BOTTOM LINE-

(Published by Arrangement.)