PROHIBITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8556, 2 May 1891, Page 3

PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— one can gainsay the fact that th« moral and social results of the drinking habits of Auckland or any ether community are most deplorable and disastrous. I shall even go further and say that the principle of taking revenue for the support of the State from that which produces poverty, pauperism, disease, and death is utterly indefensible and wrong. John Wesley, in 1784, wrote to Mr. Pitt saying, surely the revenue of the country was bought too dear, if it was the price drawn from the miseries of ! the people. But so it has been, and so it. is, and the question now arises whether or not by thia so-called prohibition a greater evil will be created than that which it aims to suppressThe experience of our American cousins goes to show that the attempt to legislate in thia direction has been with them a signal failure. .New York passed a law in 1854, tried it for two years, and gave it up as a bad job. Massachusetts tried it for 15 years, and repealed it as vain and injudicious, and an effort to restore it was voted down by an overwhelming majority, not later than April, 1889; Atalanta tried it, and repudiated it. Connecticut enacted a law, and repealed it for ever in 1872. Ohio did the same after a few months of bitter experience, and with regard to Maryland, it is absolutely impossible to raise the question after their short, but sad experience. Rhode Island enacted prohibition in 1853, and, after 10 years' trial, repudiated it as useless ; tried again to adopt it, and after only one year's experience of financial and moral disaster abandoned it for ever. And so with Michigan, Indiana, and Nebraska; all, all, with the exception of poor Maine, which has more liquor sellers in, proportion to its size than any other State in the Union. The curse of the liquor traffic in Auckland at present is that the law as it exists is not enforced. Sly drinking after hours and Sunday drinking are the rule and not the exception, and the police seem to be powerless or apathetic. What will Auckland become, if the prohibitionists are returned, aijd the hotels are closed ? A city of clubs and brothels.—l am, etc., A Freeman.