WINES PRODUCTION BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20960, 25 August 1931, Page 13

WINES PRODUCTION BILL.

Sir. —"Como Rev's" statement of the objects of the bill shows that it relates not to a permit to increase the alcoholic strength of New Zealand wine, as I had mistakenly supposed, but to the quantity and conditions under which it may bo sold, I apologise for the error, without, however, admitting that no cause for objecting to the bill remains, It is undeniable that the end in view by the promotors of this bill is to increase the facilities for tho sale of New Zealand wine, and whether that evil is better or worse than imported wine, no student of sociology, in. the light shed by modern medical science on tho effect of alcohol on the human organism, will regard such an increase as desirable. The frightful number of motor accidents, a very large proportion of which are duo to alcoholic indulgence, has forced into urgent prominence for scientific inquiry tho question of what happens when a man takes alcohol into his system, with tho result of showing that 'the safety line is really crossed when the first glass of liquor is taken. The immediate effect of alcohol, which is a narcotic poison, is to interfere with those higher faculties of tho brain that are most in demand when the driver of a motorcar faces an emergency that calls for action in the fraction of a second. Tho alcohol may be conveyed in beer, whisky or wine; its action on tho brain, even in moderate quantities, is deleterious. Are our roads to be made any safer by increasing tho number of wine-drinkers through making wine more easily accessible? It is not a caso of getting drunk by wine, or anything else; tho mischief is really done at a much earlier stage than that. "Como Hey" says that this Wines Production Bill has been brought before the House by a temperance advocate as sincere as myself. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the gentleman in question, but I have known even "temperance advocates" to bo mistaken in tho lino of policy they have pursued, and I venture respectfully to think that tho Wines Production Bill may be a case in point. W. J. Williams.