THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1891.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8584, 4 June 1891, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1891.

It lias become almost a commonplace to say that the fanatics always triumph in'the" long run. Mr. Gold win Smith, whose opinions, however, are not to be taken as if they were directly inspired by Heaven, is of Opinion that the Prohibitionist cause " will conquer, and the publicans, having stood out to the last, will be shut out from compromise and feel the edge of the victor's sword." This he infers because " the enthusiastic energy and self-devotion with which a moral cause inspires its soldiers always lias prevailed and. always will prevail over any amount of self-interest or material power arrayed on the other side." Just so over injustice and wrong, however strongly backed up by self-interest or material power, justice and right will in the end prevail, or else wo should not believe there was a God. But to assume that it is right and just to prohibit the sale of all alcoholic liquids is begging the question in the most barefaced way What the vast bulk of the thinking classes of the community maintain is that any man has a natural right to make fermented liquors for his own use, and to sell them to such other persons as may not have the means or the capacity for making them. If a man lives in a country where, grapes ripen in the open air, and throws a heap of them together into a vessel that will contain liquid, in a few days the liquids that exude will ferment spontaneously and become wine. This wine, quite as natural a product of the grape as bread is of wheat, he may put into bottles, or into casks, or into the skins of animals, and preserve for years. Is there even a prohibitionist to be found such a rampant lunatic as to assort that this man's act is - wrong, is wicked, or ought to be prevented by law? But once this is granted the whole question .of regulating the trade is entirely a question of expediency. It has been regulated by law; for the benefit of the revenue chiefly, and, to a very small extent, for the sake of preventing certain notorious evils ; the whole trade, wholesale m well its retail, has been subjected to a minute and

severe code, .every article* of which tends in. some way or other to restrain the freedom with which alcoholic drinks can be sold. 1 , 1 t '

The Prohibitionists propose to dispense with this code by the summary process of refusing a permit or license to anyone to sell these liquors retail. At present this is .ill they propose; but the logical outcome of Prohibition is that no alcoholic liquors shall either fee bought or sold, wholesale or retail. The first step to this is to shut up all the hotels in any licensing district for which a Prohibition committee may be elected. They deny this; in their official organ they say :— '" We refute [sic] this assertion as having no foundation whatever. The very idea itself is | absurd." Now, what is the object of making a statement like this? The j writer knows perfectly well that when | we or any other persons assert that the Prohibitionists mean to close the hotels, we mean that they are going to withdraw their licenses to sell intoxicating liquors- Did anyone ever imagine that the committees had any power to shut up the hotels as buildings or as boarding houses ? It is absolutely childish to argue in the way the writer of this article does, and assert that the only | object of Prohibition "is to stop the granting of licenses to sell intoxicants." j The writer of the article in question accuses the press, of this city- particularly of endeavouring to "throw dust" into the eyes of the public, respecting the licensing elections. " In another part of the same publication, in a leading I article, it is said that " the trade" has been secured in its position for three years by the great exertions of the Auckland press oh its behalf. . ." We repudiate this assertion as far as the' New Zealand Herald , is concerned. The strongest feeling of annoyance we have experienced at the action of the fanatical party is just because they have' thrown us into' the arms of the brewers', nominees. If r we ' had had really: Moderate members elected for the committee, members ''equally unconnected with actual hard drinkers and reformed , hard drinkers, men who j can< take a glass of wine or of beer without wanting to take more, or to sit down and make beasts of themselves. If we : had had men like this, of good social position, of good moral character, determined to enforce the law as it stands vigorously but fimpartially, and we might have had such men but for the; action of the fools and the fanatics who set up the Prohibitionist cry—then most of the worst evils of .the liquor; traffic would have been abated. • ! f

For it is not Sunday, trading, although that is carried on in every hotel in the colony that we have ever seen, ' nor is it the want of accommodation for boarders, although this is notorious in most of the Auckland drinking shops, that • form the greatest evils of the liquor traffic as at present carried on. .It is the practice of supplying, intoxicants to children of tender years, and .to persons already under! the influence of liquor that - causes the greatest amount of the crime for which the drink traffic is fairly, responsible. . The practice of sending ' young children -to publichouses for - drink is common amongst the -.lowest classes in the community; and ; 'many publicans, knowing per-' fectly well, that they are. breaking the law, knowing perfectly well that these wretched little creatures are being; robbed of food and clothing, of * health, r j and often of life, by the drinking habits of their unnatural parents, yet, for the sake of the paltry gain, give them the adulterated drink which is bringing its slaves down to the grave. , j But the Prohibitionists have played the game of " the trade" so well that | if they had been bribed to act as they I have done " the trade'"' would have laid out the money to advantage. Nothing but the action of these fanatics could have prevented a thorough and searching reform in the method of conducting the. liquor traffic. But they have left I us bound hand and foot for three years | at the mercy of committees who will do. j nothing but what is distinctly in the interests of the brewers and the present holders of licenses. They have refused to listen to reason, to common sense, or to justice. They suppose that the only remedy for the drunkenness tliat exists is to deprive men of the means of get- • ting drink. They seem to bo incapable of believing that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority, of the public never drink to excess ; that it is only a very small minority who do so ; that? for the most part this minority consists of persons whose moral fibre is weak in other respects, and who commit such crimes as would bring them in collision! with the law whether they are drunk or sober. And then they attribute all the crime done when 'the criminal is under the influence of liquor to the liquor, as if the habitual conduct of the people who form the bulk ,of our criminal classes was always virtuous when sober, and only criminal when drunk. It . would be well if these people would take up their abodes for a time in some Mohammedan country, whore the people drink no alcohol, but where crimes of violence, and other crimes even worse, are quite as frequent as in drunken London. Well ! thanks to the Prohibitionists, we have a Licensing Committee nominated by the trade, but we warn them that they will' be very jealously watched, and that if they do not perform their duty fairly well they will find their positions decidedly uncomfortable.