SIR J. P. ABBOTT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10594, 1 March 1895, Page 2

SIR J. P. ABBOTT.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— l was much pleased on Saturday morning to find you had .given yourself away to us again. You editors are always doing it. No matter how constantly 'you may carp and quibble at the prohibitionists you are sure every now and then to write something which is straight into our hands. You did on Saturday in that leaderette on a reported interview with Sir.J. P. Abbott, where you ridiculed the statement that our village settlements wore mostly failures, the extension of the franchise .a farce and the reform of the liquor traffic a fraud. You opined that if the cable were correct Sir Joseph's informants must have been people who were not particularly anxious to give him a favourable impression of the effects of our recent legislation, and you justly remarked that residents in the colony had better opportunities of judging of their condition than Sir Joseph Abbott had. That last statement is quite correct. You evidently now sea clearly. But why eo long blind? Yon have often accepted as true the assertion that in these American States where it has been carried prohibition is a failure • that it is easy to obtain drink in each ot these States, and that in them the prohibitory law is unpopular. Your authorities for these assertions have been casual visitors, many of them* less reliable than our late visitor. Their informants when named have been proved to be people who were particularly anxious to give an unfavourable impression of prohibitory legislation. You did not call these globetrotter yarns either pure inventions or specimens of wild exaggeration, but accepted them as welcome truth, regardless of the fact that assurances of the efficacy and popularity of the, American prohibitory laws have been published by such well-accredited residents as Governor Martin, ex-Qovernor St John, the Chief Justice, Justices D. M. Valentine and W. H. Johnston, the Secretary of State, the State Auditor, the Attorney-General, seventy-three * Probate Judges and other officials of Kansas, with Governor Larrabee, and a • number of officials in lowa. You reject the verdict of the Speaker of an Australian Legislature because it does not coincide with the general opinion of the ordinary New Zealand resident; yet you accept without hesitation the opinion of any casual visitor to the prohibition States, although that opinion is directly opposed to the statements of residents of such high official position as those I have quoted.—l am, &c., JUNIA.

[Our correspondent is evidently crediting us with the opinion expressed by some of our contemporaries, and he entirely misunderstands our attitude towards prohibition. — Ed, L.T.2