KING COUNTRY LIQUOR LAWS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4800, 21 June 1939, Page 5

KING COUNTRY LIQUOR LAWS.

(To the Editor). Sir, As a very large number of people are under the impression that according to the Treaty of Waitangi, the importation of liquor into the King Country is prohibited, might I suggest that you re-publish the text of this treaty. It was done once some years ago in your paper.

It will then be realised by these

good people that there is not one syllable in the treaty with reference to liquor anywhere, let alone in the King Country, but in a subsequent agreement between the chiefs and the then Government prior to the construction of the main trunk line it was agreed that liquor should not be brought into the King Country on the railway. Since that time this clause has been utterly disregarded, the only restriction being that the vendor and police should be notified of the purchaser’s name and quantity of liquor supplied. This rule still exists and is observed so far as the railway is concerned.

The 3.45 p.m. train is but one of several which brings in enough liquor every day to stock an hotel, so it will be realised that the Government of New Zealand, both then, and ever since, have entirely ignored the clause as to the King Country being kept dry, but the settlers of the King Country have never had a chance from then to now of recording their wishes in the matter, which is equally as hypocritical as the art unions under Government which state in all advertisements and on the tickets, that all prizes are paid in alluvial gold! Apart from the railway there are hundreds of gallons of beer and spirits brought in by car owners without being declared. It is a hopeless and most unpleasant job for the police, and the fact must be faced that the present position is farcical. Sly-groggers are reaping a rich harvest, with beer at from 2s to 2s 6d a bottle which costs them lOd, and whisky Is a nip and they get 30 nips out of a bottle. Only last week a case was reported in which it was stated that a slygrogger made £I2OO a year profit (in Te Kuiti), and there are others who are doubtless doing as well. Keg parties do a lot of harm amongst all sections of society. Men sit round the keg until it is finished and this procedure is not confined to one night in the week. Financially, it is ruinous to many young men and from a health and moral point of view it is disastrous.

The whole system of prohibition is as rotten here as it was in America —l2O million people experienced the evils of it for a number of years, five, I think, and then threw it out. There is plenty of room for two licensed hotels in Te Kuiti and one each in Aria and Pio Pio and other King Country towns, according to population. They should not be under State control—nowhere else in New Zealand are hotels under State control, so why should the King Country have this indignity forced on it? Are we physically, morally or intellectually worse than those in any other section of New Zealand? If we are, it is because a perfectly natural taste is refused access to reasonable means of assuaging it by obsolete laws which are obeyed by no one. If men could obtain a drink legally at the usual New Zealand prices in towns, he would enter the hotel, have his drink, pay for it and would walk out, all the better in health and pocket. As things are, the liquor trade has been driven into underground channels, the settlers suffer in both ways, whilst the sly-groggers flourish. As for the tourist traffic, until Government recognises that most travellers are monied people used to having a drink when they want one, particularly with meals, it will gradually find out that when visitors have paid one visit to those glorified boardinghouses at Waitomo and National Park, they will not repeat the dose of discomfort. Ministers of the Crown visiting Te Kuiti would ration their visits carefully to a minimum, if they were to go through a toast list on hop beer, lemon and raspberry. Ye Gods! —1 am, etc., THIRTY YEAR RESIDENT.