BUSINESS ASPECT OF PROHIBITION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 83, 8 April 1919, Page 4

BUSINESS ASPECT OF PROHIBITION

SOUND FINANCIAL PROPOSITION.

Some people are still uncertain regarding the business aspects of prohibition of liquor as a beverage. ‘ The Wellington Dominion makes these comments on the matter: —

“The forces of anti-liquor have nothing "to gain personally beyond that benefit which they expect to accrue to every citizen from the abolition of a Traffic which they claim to be prejudicial to the best interests of the great mass of the people. In the past the advantage’which this position has given the prohibitionists has been discounted to* same extent by a tendency in some quarters to regard prohibitionists as well-meaning extremists _ who take too little heed of the practical side of the issues involved in the great social movement for which .they axe so zealously working. To-day that handicap has been largely removed by the participation in _ the movement for the abolition of the liquor traffic of a large and influential body of business men, iri« eluding some of the ablest and most successful merchants and traders in the Dominion, who have joined, in the cm* sade not on moral, but on economic grounds. They have thrown their weight into the scale because they re* gard the abolition of the drink traffic as a good business proposition from the point of view bf the whole Do. minion. Now, whatever .estimate the dispassionate elector may be prepared to put on the opinions of the ordinary prohibitionist as to .the economic ef- 1 fects of prohibition, the, views of the non prohibitionist business men of the community who are supporting the movement are bound to command re» jspect. And these views, as stated; in‘dicato clearly enough that sider that from the financial point of view the community need have, no con. jeem as to the price it is proposed to pay; tor the closing down of the liquor trade; but that on the contrary It will be a profitable transaction. As to where the money is to come from to _ pay £4,500,000 in compensation to the liquor trade, the country could if it so desir-’ ed pay this money by utilising a part ot the £11,000,000 surplus revenue which has accumulated during the past three years. ..This surplus has been

nursddf bv fhe Government !n order to j meat any unforseeri war contingency which might' arise.- The war v is now oyer, and a portion of this sum could, if Parliament so decided, he used as stated, and*compensation thus be paid to the liquor trade out of the country’s

1 surplus profits without borrowing one penny piece. As to the necessity for I extra taxation being imposed to meet the loss of revenue from Customs and excise duties on liquor the average dtl* zen, If he has /liven any attention at all to the case made out by those who support the abolition of the drink traffic on the grounds of national efficiency is not likely to have any uneasiness on this score.

, A recent issue of the New JSealand Herald contained a full-page advertisement urgimr the carrviru? of Prohibition,; signed by 240 of leading Auckland citizens—many of whom are not Prohibitionists in the ordinary sense, but men who believe, apart from the moral aspect of the Liquor Traffic, the carrying of Prohibition will .be of great benefit to tho peonle of the Dominion. The last thing that would be said about these, men i, that th°y are fanatical extremists.*