PROHIBITION AND INFERIOR LIQUOR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12973, 14 November 1902, Page 5

PROHIBITION AND INFERIOR LIQUOR.

Every reliable authority, every authority who has had some practical experience of the operation of a prohibitory liquor law, admits that among the first and the worst results of such a law is the sale and consumption of inferior liquor. Writing on this point Messrs Rountree and Sherwell, in their work on "The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," assert that "in searching iov explanations of the apparently widespread prevalence of drunkenness in the prohibited towns and cities, it is necessary to remember that much of the liquor consumed' is of very inferior quality, and so compounded as to quickly produce intoxication." The evidence on this point is decisive. The City Marshal of Portland (in the prohibitory State of Maine) when asked if the sales of liquor in the city were larger or smaller than formerly, said : " Well, I think there is less liquor, but the class of goods that is being used now is vile." The President of the Portland Board of Trade, an official who has lived all his life in the city, stated before the Canadian Royal Commission that from his own observations it seemed 1 to him that the quality of liquor sold in the city was bad, so bad, he said, "that it has the effect of making people crazy-drunk very rapidly." Before the same Commission the President of the Portland Savings Bank was asked to give the results of his personal observation as to the manner in which the law was enforced and the result of its enforcement, and in reply he stated: " It has no effect on people who have means to send away for liquor or wines. If.it has any effect at all it is on the poor class, the labouring class. It has had the effect, and I nave frequently had' my attention called to it,. of occasioning the consumption of an immense amount of extremely injurious liquor." He further adds: "I think I have been able to see myself, as I have been about the city, no decrease in the number of drunken people I meet." Remember this is the evidence of men (city officials) who have had practical experience of a prohibitory liquor law. Their evidence is conclusive. Such a law neither stops drinking nor drunkenness, but promotes a sly traffic© in vile compounds. 2239