LIQUOR QUESTION

Northland Age, Volume XX, Issue 9, 7 November 1950, Page 5

LIQUOR QUESTION

Sir.—lt is well for us to review at times something of the liquor question. The N.Z. Liquor Bill for 1949 estimated at £17,850,000 is again the highest on record, over £1,000,000 more than 1948, over a million more gallons of beer, and a large increase of New Zealand and imported wines were consumed. Recently Parliamentarians by an enormous majority voted to continue the sale of liquor in Parliament Buildings. ' Politicians cannot alford to take even one small drink. The first casualty in the person who drinks is not his tongue nor his feet, but his brain. Drunkenness starts at the top of the brain and then works down. It is in this top that judgement, discrimination and sense of responsibility are located. We have confused the political and moral issues of liquor in New Zealand. Social pressure is more powerful than the warnings of scientists, industrialists, moralists and preachers. The beverage use of alcohol remains one of the greatest and most damaging evils of our day in every country of the world. Thousands of our lads learned to drink in the days of war. They have taken their evil habit into their homes. Women and children are victims too. Sad to say, only some sections of the Christian Church are fighting the liquor trade. If we cannot curb the trade, it will cripple the nation. The tension and speed of modern life coupled with the decline of spiritual and moral values intensify the problems, and must continue to do so increasingly. World authorities are painfully waking to the fact. The World Health Organisation of the United Nations has taken up the matter of alcohol and its damage in a community, and has nominated April 7th as th e day for an annual effort to interest people in, and to enhance the health of the human race. The experiment of our Queensland friends in the chain of Canberra Hotels is having its counterpart in Great Britain. The British Temperance League have ventured forth in the purchase of “Eastwood Grange,” a beautiful English Hall, set in spacious grounds also the magnificent gift of “The Gean House,” one of the most beautiful mansions of its kind in Scotland and stands in 22 acres of gardens and woodlands. Both will provide excellent amenities for both conferences and holiday purposes. While the Temperance movement has friends of such calibre in its supporters the world over, it must go forward to the goal of a clean, sane and sober world. There is no reason why even Kaitaia at sometime sooner or later cannot move forward to getting a good up-to-date Temperance Hotel built. India is proving the value of Prohibition, and rapidly moving towards it by planned stages. Bombay on March 31st last with its 3 million, became the world’s biggest “dry” city. At midnight all bars were compulsorily closed. India has declared war on drink as the greatest enemy to progress and economic development. The Indian owned newspapers have once again confirmed their policy that they will not accept any liquor advertisements. By means of local option, America is moving back to Prohibition. Statistics made public, show that nearly a third of the nation is dry again. In the ten no-licence electorates in New Zealand it was gratifying that th e average no-licence vote in 194 S was 52 percent, whereas in 1946 it averaged 49.5 percent. There is approximately 1/6, 300,000 of the Dominion population living under nolicence conditions by the vote of the people, and probably an equal number of districts that have developed, and large suburban areas where licenses were wiped out in the early days under reduction voting. Dunedin is an outstanding example of this. The Minister of Health is to be commended for providing regulations prohibiting from September Ist any suggestion in liquor advertisements that alcoholic beverages have any nutritive or medicinal properties. It is to be hoped that the Government will not stop at this in regard to liquor advertising. Yours, etc., J. T. WILLIAMS.