LIQUOR TRADE ANOMALIES.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 870, 9 March 1917, Page 8

LIQUOR TRADE ANOMALIES.

-State Control: the Only Remedy. TQ> ECENT Home papers simply reelc with letters and articles demand--ing a wider application of tlie principle" ; of State Control, already partially in force in several districts. The big English towns are ■ notoriouslj* over ( "pubbed,'-' and . State Control appearsto afford the only workable means of making the much-needed reduction. Here in. New Zealand." owing; to the- : folly of. eliminating the re<luction issiie. there are certain towns which possessa quite absurdly, large number of licensed, . hoiises. At the' Methodist Conferencethe other day the President said he.had . ,recently visited the West Coast "and' found that in one town of 1500 inhabitants there were no: fewer than nine-' teen public houses! Of course, in thegood old days of the gold rushes, when the lucky diggers- drank champagne out of buckets and tlio unlucky ones drank gallons of beer to drown the thoughts-, ofe their ill fortune, those, nineteen pubs, were., in all not,■ one toomany. . V - «.© a e But torday a town of 1500 people could be quite reasonably . served by three dec en tl y-con ducte d lioiises. The rest should be . closed. *- Under State/ Control they would be, but" while the Cold Tea, iri-econcilables are waiting for the National' Prohibition they ..-.will never get. the plethora- of pubs, continues nnabated. When the House has finished, its wav business next session, at might do worse than set about a very serious consideration: of: the State Con.wo.) principle.