THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 75, 29 March 1919, Page 5

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

CONTINUANCE MEANS SOMEONE

MUST SUFFER,

Says the Dunedin Star:—A great many people will vote .Prohibition, not-becauso'-they dislike liquor, not because they ever received any injury from i', but because they kno,w somebody must sulfer if the liquor trade goes on, and they cannot be sure that they or theirs will not be the sufferers, in tact, thn. have an uneasy feeling that, since "you can no more run a timber mill without using up logs than you can run the liquor traffic without using up ■boys,” if they vote for the liqu«»» traffic justice will see that their boys are used up by it. That fear is only too often driven home by life. How common a thing it i s to know a man whose only feeling towards Prohibition and Prohibitionists i* one of exasperation. He enjoys hie liquor, enjoys the social life that liquor administers 40, suffers ja« far as he can judge) no loss or injury whatever, and denounces the Prohibitionist as a wild fanatic and an altogether intolerant and intolerable man; and yet in a few years afterwards that same man will be found in the ranks of the Prohibitionists. When asked for I'he reason for this amazing change, he will say : “The 'trade* have got my boy.” ' , . That is the thing that is making Prohibitionists every day. All the wiles and clever arguments of either the “trade” or the Moderates apd their break themselves' against that in vain. That is wha:- will drive thousands to vote for Prohibition, in spite of Compensation . Their boys are worth more to them than they mav ‘ have to pay from the (Consolidated Fund, even though the sum total should exceed four and a-bnlf millions sterling.