THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC! IN THE KING COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10422, 21 April 1897, Page 4

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC! IN THE KING COUNTRY.

In answer to Mr. French's letter od this subject, we may say that we should have been glad to have seen Prohibition a success in the King Country. The Maoris are entitled to a larger amount of protection against the evils of drinking than Europeans, who ought to be trained in habits of self-government. But the experiment is a failure confessed on all sides. There is probably I more drinking at the present time in the King Country than if that district were in tho same position as the rest of the island, and had licensed hotels at points where they were needful for the accommodation of travellers and residents. And the consequences of suoh a state of things is very bad indeed. The whole traffic is carried on in breach of the law. Every man who sells or who drinks a glass of liquor is breaking the law. The merchants in town who supply the liquor know they are doing something which ia unlawful, and they and their employees are carrying on virtually a smuggling trade. The whole traffic in the King Country is carried on as smuggling, to the demoralising of all concerned, who must amount to many hundreds. The effect of the business, as at present carried on, must be exceedingly injurious, as accustoming many individuals to the systematic practice of defeating the law. The object of making the Klug Country a prohibited territory was to pre&erve the Maoris from contact with a demoralising agency. The result has been to convert many of the best of tbe natives into sellers of liquor to the European travellers. Wβ have made

those persons whom we were desirous to preserve sly grog-sellers. And we must expect this to increase, because tlio country will become more and more settled by Europeans, There is a railway through it, and some parts of the district are so fertile that it is quite cortain that there will be a numerous population, It ii quite impossible even to conceive that prohibition can be enforced amongst them when they are surrounded by distriote in which the sale is legal. We know what the reply of the prohibitionista

will be, namely, "Give us more and more and still more policemen, with strict orders that above nil laws tho liquor law must be enforced," We do not believe that in the present circurustaudes of the King Country, not to mention what it is certain to be in the immediate future, any accession of police force could do more than mitigate the present evils, and that with n demoralisation in a wholesale spy .system, and a frightful mass of perjury, which would be a greater curse to the population than the drunkenness ib was intended to cufe. Ami besides, when a law cannot be enforced except by a costly army of policemen, auct then only partially) and by the creation of great evils, it is time to consider , whether tlw law is not too strict to be enforced, and whether it should not be repealed. We say that the country has no right to bo put to suoh a heavy expense in the enforcing of an impracticable law, which does not carry With it the approval of the greater part of the community,