THE LICENSING QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9036, 20 April 1888, Page 6

THE LICENSING QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, As this vexed question is, for the present, happily quieting down, I really think it would be well if your readers would now calmly and dispassionately consider such utterances as the following, taken from one of the home magazines received by last mail. The struggle will be, of course, renewed by-and-by, but in the meantime well-balanced common-sense like the following should receive most serious consideration. The quotation is from an article upon " European * Equilibrium," writer's name not given :■—•" In the United States the problem of the form of Government has received a solution which (whatever may be its defects) is in all directions workable, and in some directions in advance of any other yet put into political operation. But the demon of despotism is not to be exorcised by the adoption of any form of government, even the most perfect, and in some of the States of the great American Republic there is as little recognition, in certain of the laws, of the right of the individual to regulate his own self - regarding conduct as in Russia itself. What effect can such laws Vave on the character of the people' They (the laws)—or some of them—are enforced for the purpose of making people sober and temperate, against their will. Let us suppose them successful in keeping the people undefiled by the smallest drop of the weakest of alcoholic drinks. What then? Cannot the persons who use the method of force by which this end is (by hypothesis) attained, see that he devil they have called up to cast out the devil of intemperate drinking, is incomparably the more diabolic in character ? Nothing can compensate for the degradation of character which methods of force bring about; and it is as clear as anything can be in political science, that if the people of the United States persevere in this course of violent disregard of the autonomy of the individual, they must sow the seeds of ' rowdyism ' and ' militarism,' which must be, in the end, fatal to their political institutions." This appears to me to require no further remark, but let all concerned think of it. It is well said.—

I am, &c., Recti Pervicax. Auckland, April 18, 1888.