LABOUR AND LIQUOR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 83, 8 April 1919, Page 5

LABOUR AND LIQUOR

In the' Column - lor Workem . conducted by D. G. Sullivan, in the issue of the Christchurch' Sun for Saturday, Match 29,

f LIQUOR CONTROVERSY,

The Maoriland Worker - this week makes the following comments on the Liqubr controversy:— . “The liquor trade is a social .evil;; .; it is private enterprise in one of its worst forms. We are not fanatical on;'this question; we approach it with an open, unbiassed mind, having the welfare of the people in yiew. Even were Prohibition a proved evil, we would regard it asf the lessee of the two evils, , if the open bar were the other. Hence; our voied and bur- vote go against the ( Trade. We make no apology for, declaring against a trade which stands in the way of social reform. We do not regard drink as the one social evil, or even as the worst; we take the. average Socialist yiew .that drinkmg habits and drunkenness are caused, very largely by poverty and a bad environment. But the Trade does not help to.; banish poverty* oa; ■im Drove ■ the' environment- ‘ Hence‘it stands'in the way of Boclal reform, and we concede to the Pfohibxj tioufst honestly seeking to promote his ■ cause the right to be regarded as a social -reformer.”

I A "COURAGEOUS DECLARATION,

1 It is needless to expatiate. on .the evils of drink. These are known to all {thinking men and women. Drink is an I enemy of the worker—one ofythe agencleg.-’ which rob him of his haftf-earned i wages and deprive him el abURy t0 think and to realise his true place in the- Social scheme of things. - A' sober people is better than a people given to the drink habit. . The drinker is not a good citizen ; he heselfish and self-centred, and not fit to exercise his social duties.. Bo may talk of his right to drink, but he has ho right to get drunk. At the p»e- ---■ sent time he has freedom to dnxnk of course,. to certain penal•flest That kind of Individual .freedom is totally opposed to the social freedom that Labour stands fori JK . The liquor traffic makes for poverty, for !* disease, lor misery, for . prenui|ure death. All these ate antisocial ,evils, and as such Labour must fight against them. The liquor traffic is the^bulIwark of property and privileges, hence lis -no friend of Labour. ' Against the ■ publican we have nothing to say; he ; himself is a victim of. circumstances, and would benefit by being deprived of a trade which cannot but make -for social misery ani suffering*