PROHIBITION IN THE KING COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10422, 21 April 1897, Page 6

PROHIBITION IN THE KING COUNTRY.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir,-Lovers of human process, as well as those who respect our native population will, I think, be found to dissent from the two conclusion! you arrive at in your article of the 9tli iuetant. First, "that the attempt to make a prohibition district in the King Country ia an utter failure, and ought to be abandoned." That the law is defective everybody knows, that it can be made effective everybody admits. If eection 33 of the amended Act of 1895, were made to apply to that district, the police could immediately turn a sham into a reality. Aβ then the police could deal with evasions of the law at the Auckland end of the line, as well in the King Country. Give the police section 33 to work on, and it would be found that they would not require " the whole police force of the country, but would be quit* competent for the daty, or if not, would have to make ! room for better men. It ii quite true that emußßling, and defying the law, must be a fertile source of demoralisation. Unhappily that is by no means oonßned to the Maori. The merchant who supplies, ia in the same boat, as the man who orders, and the Government that knowingly conveys ii much ia the gftroe position. If that is doubted, what would be said to the Hinemoa conveying smuggled Roods from a smuggler to the shore, for the price of the freight. That there are district where there are hotels in which the Maorii ire becoming more &ud more abstinent, is no doubt true. Rotorua, for instance, thanks to Mrs. Hewitt and her coworkers. But the hotels we not a factor in promoting such abstinence, which no doubt you will readily admit. Undoubtedly it is the divergence between creed and life that has caused the .tumbling Mock in the way ef Christian missions «mongst the natives, as it does amongst our own people. I do not mean in the cue of the noble men who ,1 RIW j of their b* , *' tne missionaries cl the variou choieim, b«t the balk of

those of us who were below the sample the Maoris had become familiarised with. So much has been said and written about prohibition in the King Country, and you think it ought to be abandoned, now would it do to leave it to the people of that district to decide? For this purpose place the Maori on terms of equality with ourselves; let the adults be enfranchised, and if with the European vote, » three-fifths vote, is carried against prohibition, let the inevitable be accepted. If that is thought too large a majority (it is the present law), accept the bare majority vote for the colony. All we want is perfect equality, aud then abide by the decision. Uutil that is done, let the law be maintained and enforced, and its defects remedied.—l am, etc., R. French. April 12,1897;