DISTILLERIES, WISE AND BEER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 4

DISTILLERIES, WISE AND BEER.

Is Now Zealand over going to bo a vinogrowing country, a wine-drinking and v> ineoxporting country ? Wo sincerely hope it ig. Nothing is nioro certain than that it is marked, quoted and by nature for tho culture of the queen of all fruits and the production of wines both generous and moderate. The wines of Australia are, somo of them, good, of full body, rich flavour and much, something too much, of fire. Hero the climate is less warm, and there is more of that marked difference between winter and summer which L essential to the best characteristics of the vino. Everything points to a great future for tho vineyards of New Zealand, of which a most ablo and sympathetic description was written by the Victorian expert who v,vas invited over here to report last year. IhQ only lion in tho path is the Prohibitionist. The future of this magnificent industry, which gives golden harvests on small areas by employing vast numbers of people, and in no way favours drunkenness, cannot and will uot bo allowed to. bo interfered with by the very well-moaning but most narrow sect of our population. Now Zealanders, when thoy got to understand tho value of tho industry, will make

spite of all the teetotallers under Heaven. Tho wine-producing capacity of tho country is, in fact, the surest guarantee that Prohibition must fail in New Zealand utterly, simply by being in conflict with the best material interests of the people of tnc couutry. It is worth remembering in this connection that no wine-producing country has ever taken cither to drunkenness or to Prohibition. That is the plain teaching of the world’s experience. It has often been

said that wine makes brandy, and therefore promotes drunkenness, and must be in perpetual conflict with beer, which is cheap and, as a drink, always national. Now, the evidence is that Prance never was a drunken country, and only developed a tendency nr the direction of a taste for alcohol when tho greatest of all Pohibitionists, tiro Phylloxera destroyed so many of the vineyards. Moreover, a recent report from Victoria tells us that, in spite of the largo scale on which wine is manufactured in tiro colony of "Victoria, the brewers managed to get sale for thirteen million gallons of beer. This is, after all, only the experience of the lihinislr provinces, where wine is widely drunk, and beer is nevertheless a national beverage.