TO THE WORKERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18066, 5 April 1919, Page 7

TO THE WORKERS.

SUPPORT STATE CONTROL. .VOTE AGAINST PROHIBITION NEXT THURSDAY. By JOHN PAYNE, M.P. for Grey Lynn.

The owning Election bo tH® most momentous political issue evar fought in Now Zealand. We have hitherto been ruled by Vested parliamentary leaders have been representative of the great moneyed and financial class. We are going to put into power at the coming Election a Government which will truly represent the people —a Labour Government lJ That Government will have an enormous task of reconstruction to perform to bring New Zealand into line with the trend of modern thought and modem progress. It will have to do that which the so-called National Government has shirked doing so long. Do you want to seriously hampor that Government in it® work <tf reconstructing in the interest# of the great mam of the people?. ' Barely you do NOT! Do you know that you WILL seriously hamper the New Labour Government in its work of reconstruction if you oary prohibition on the 10th.P I ass are you, you WILL hamper them if you allow yourselves to be earned away by imported Lecturers and the fanatical section of the Prohibition Party I I am going to presume to advise you on this Great Issue of the 10th, beoahse I have been eight years before you as a public man, and, North, . Bouth, East and West of New Zealand, yon know mo as a staunch and fearless fighter in the interests of the people. My advice to you h i HAT TO VOTE PROHIBITION ON THE 10th. But to Vote CONTINUANCE and then vote STATE CONTROL at the coming General Election. You have no personal grouch on the brewer or the publican—it is not a PERSONAL matter at all. You desire to see the DRUNKARD SAVED FROM. HIMSELF. So do I —just as ardently as the most fanatical Prohibitionist. I say that we can save the drunkard from himself without placing grave financial difficulties in the way of the New Labour Government, and without flooding an already overcrowded unskilled labour market with the surplus labour of the hotels. Under STATE CONTROL we can accomplish all that is neCes®ary to “ clean up.” I shall hope to he there when the New Labour Government cornea into power. I shall help to formulate a full and efficient scheme of BTATE CONTROL Of the liquor traffio in the interests of the whole of the people. Being a practical Auditor and AoowC'.fltant, as a politician I am necessarily a close student of figures, Sjoance and economics. r. I say that if the Government of today is satisfied that we can pay away £4,500,000 FOR NOTHING, Aftfl can do without the £1,000,000 * year revenue paid by the “ Trade,” then the New Labour Government can raisb £4,500,000 and can allocate the Trade revenue of £1,000,000 a year for the purpose of building cheap hygienic houses in healthy garden suburbs in our towns and cities, and so do away with the awful slum conditions revealed by the great Epidemic. Don’t you think the £4,500,000 and the £1,000,000 a year would be better expended in that way?

WbnMrfb ft do more tn the Interests of Real Morality than all prohibitionists can ever hope to accomplish? There is only one common-sense answer to that! Who is it that are raising this great cry of “EFFICIENCY w Do you know whd are the real rnisers of this parrot cry of "Efficiency ” P They are the vultures who constitute those International Finance Gangs. After you have given your sons, brothers, husbands, as a sacrifice to the God of War —after you have been bled white by the profiteer—you and all the people of the Allied Nations ore to be asked to work your fingers to the bone, on a plea of “ Efficiency,” in order that you may earn interest for the War Bond holding vultures of the International Finance Gang. The New Labour Plarty will nationalise banking a 3 the Federal Labour Party of Australia intend to do, and we will then pay off every War Bond with a State Bank Cheque, and , we will give the State Bank a mortgage on the Consolidated Fund to oover the liability of the cheques in circulation, and by that means save ALL the interest! on War Bonds. That is REAL " EFFICIENCY.” Do you find the prohibitionists raising their voices for such “ REAL ” EFFICIENCY P Do ydu find the prohibitionists raising their voices against the system of profiteering whereby you and yours are half-fed, half-clothed, half-shod—-all because of the prohibitive price of necessaries P Do you find them pointing out that half-starved men, women and children cannot go to make up an “ efficient” community P Are not some of the leading lights of prohibition the big drapero ironmongers, grocers etc., who have bled you for 200 and 800 per cent profits ’during the time your men-folk were away fighting at the front? Does it not strike you as the most arrant humbug for these profiteers to mouth phrases like “democracy” and “efficiency” or who pay imported Lecturers to mouth these phrases for them P The carrying of prohibition will throw at least 4000 unskilled workers on to the labour market, many of them only fit for light employment, and there are plenty of returned soldiers vainly looking for such employment already I When Maaterton went dry, only one hotel could be kept open for the convenience of the travelling public, and that one had to be subsidised by the prohibition party or it, too, would have had to close its doors. Fact 3 speak louder than bluff. OUR AIM 18 “ REAL TEMPERANCE.” Vote out prohibition on the 10th. Vote in State Control at the Coming Election. Give the New Labour Party a chance to do things unhampered by obstacles placed in their way by well-meaning but fanatical people. This is no time for drastic experiments; so far our industrial conditions have been such that we hnvo hardly known that a war has been on. We don't know what may be before us in the coming months now war has ended- To wilfully disturb any trade conditions is only playing with fire that mav burn us badly before we are through with it. My most earnest advice to you is LEAVE WELL ALONE!! My advice is the result of a calm unbiassed consideration of all the facts surrounding the issue on the 10th. The fanatics may whisper “ Trade Influence.” I won’t lose any sleep over that. When i cannot speak my mind, politics will no longer have any attraction for me. You who know me best, know that. Yours faithfully, JOHN PAYNE, M.P., Member for Grey Lynn. Lewisham Hospital, 4th April, 1919.