[Published by Arrangement.] THE LICENSING POLL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8711, 27 October 1908, Page 5

[Published by Arrangement.] THE LICENSING POLL.

Now that the Licensing Poll is so near at hand it behoves the electors of this town to toonsider carefully what nolicense means. The enormous amount of liquor consumed in the no-licenee districts of Jnvercargill and Ashburton show that no-license is a<n absolute failure, and this is substantiated by the results as shown in the prohibition States of America.

Medical men have shown that an ordinary mam can take one and! a half ounccs of alcohol in 24 hours without injury and often with advantage, and this is endorsed by, the fact that' all nations in the van of civilization consume alooholic beverages. The teetotal nations are nowhere, and are prinicpally known by their fanaticism. The late Mr Gladstone Bays of prohibition: — "How c-an I who drink good wine and bitter beer every day of my life coolly stand up and advise nard-working fellow creatures to take the pledge." To say that there should bo no public houses would bo to say that people were incapable of using them without • abusing them, and when such ~ methods are adopted it leads previously respectable citizens to assert their independence by hole and corner methods, and by means undesirable and destructive in character. This surely must be: contrary to the British mind.

Again the insincerity of prohibitionists is shown in their refusal to adopt clause 9 in the Licensing Acts, "No License No Liquor," but their motto is eyidently " No License Much Liquor," as" shown by the amounts consumed in the nolicenso districts of " Ashburton _ and Invei'cargill, and the prohibitionists have placed these districts in the false position of having sly grog shops, secret drinking, and bad liquor, but they never tell you about the evils existing in nolicense areas. Why? Does the doctrine of prohibition pay its exponents so well that even ministers of _ tne church will try and hide its pernicious effects. The teaching of prohibition is that' their way of consuming liquor is preferable to a respectable hotelkeeper,. who has to cater for the publio in other reepects, and is under the supervision of the Licensing Committee, a body elected by the public to see that the law is observed. It seems that the whole objcct of prohibition is to harass and destroy respectable hotelkeepers, irrespective of the way they are conducting their businesses; but I say again how can the no-license party be sincere when we have the results of the evils in no-licenso area before us. Your cor respondent cannot see how no-licenso and morality can blend. )