WHAT PROHIBITION HAS DONE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 60

WHAT PROHIBITION HAS DONE

(By T. M. Smith.)

Prohibition, or no-license, has now been on its trial in portions of this colony for close on eleven years, and, although its supporters may reasonably claim that its power for good—if any—cannot definitely be ascertained unless and until it lias been universally adopted, yet, having approved the principles of reduction and local as opposed to colonial option, they cannot complain if these thing®, at least, ■are judged by tlieir results. To ascertain these results it is necessary first to consider what the position of the colony in respect of the consumption of alcoholic liquors was in 1894, the year of the first licensing poll. That it was eminently satisfactory to all who were really interested in temperance cannot be doubted, for not only was the consumption of alcohol per head less than in any European country (the Turk, of course, cannot be accepted as European), and less than in any of the colonies, with the single exception of Tasmania, but there had for a considerable number of years past been a steady and persistent falling off in the consumption year by year. Fortunately, through the industry of the RegistrarGeneral, the figures are easily available, and are arranged in a simple and easilyunderstood form. The following table gives statistics of the consumption of alcoholic drinks per head of the population as they are pubi shed in the “Official Year Books” of the colony:

Here, rvith one or two trifling exceptions. is shown a steady decline for twelve years, a when it is remembered that these figtues show the consumption per f\ ea £ ' ,including infants, it will be seen that the decrease is remarkable. Taking consumers of alcoholic drinks to be onethird of tne total population, those figures mean a decrease in the annual consu npiion °f over six gallons of beer, one gallon of yy hi sky and half a gallon of wine for each consumer! No wonder, that in publishing them in the “Year Rook" for 1896. the Registrar-General is constrained to 6a .V: ‘‘So considerable a reduct on in the rate of consumption of these liquors in the last 13 years should give every encouragement to the advocates of temperance principles in the prosecution of their (work. The pity of it is that he has never been able to say the same since. In 1893 urged on, not by “advocates of temperance principles,” but by fanat.cai who were unable or unwilling to 3.et well alone, the Government pas3ed°the Alcoholic Liquor Sales Control Act, establishing the principle of local option, this act came into force in the following year, since which time temperance principles have been abandoned in favour of prohibition, persuasion has given place to force. The first poll under the act carried prohibition m one and reduction in fourteen districts, and resulted in the closing of 12 per cent, of the hotels, subsequent polls having increased the percentage to twentv and now we have the j£ight, surely, to look for some good result. While we were treated as reasoning, thinking beings we showed that we were growing increasingly sober; now that we are treated as children or, rather, as dumb, driven cattle,” it is for our masters they are our masters till we throw off the yoke—to show that we are even more sober? Can they do so? Let official figures once more speak. From 1895 to 1904' tlie consumption of liquor per head is given as follows:

Advocates of temperance principles must be very sanguine indeed if they can gather any encouragement from these figures! Making our calculations on the same basis as before we find ’hat nine y<-r3 of prohibition lias resulted in an increase of over six gallons of beer and one-third of a gallon of whisky to each consumer, so that so far from having improved we have nearly gone back to the jitdlo. -f del l l\iioss frojn wliioii Lwolvg vonrs of sane liquor laws hud enabled us to emerge. Nor do these figures stand alone; if wo take the statistics of drunkenness we find flic same extrarodinary result a steady improvement before prohibition and a steady increase after. Take first the figures showing the number of distinct persons of diunkenness reeaived into gaol. These were:

Year. Cases. 1885 1200 1886 1077 1887 1038 1888 938 1889 802 1890 808 1891 094 1892 638 1893 619 1894 ... ... ... ~, 457 On this point the Registrar-General commence as follows: —“Here the decrease proceeds rapidly and almost uniformly year by year. It is true that the option of a fine is generally’given to a person convicted of drunkenness, but there is nothing to show that the proportion cf fines for this offence has increased of late, so that a fall in the number of distinct persons imprisoned may fairly be accepted as ev.dence of' growing sobriety among the people.” If this is a true deduction, then the figures which follow, showing, as they do, a rapid and almost uniform increase year by year, must be accepted as evidence of the growing insobnety of the people under reduction and partial prohibition. The year after the local option poll—for the first time in ten years—the figures rise, and have continued to grow ever since. They were : Year. Cases. 1895 469 1896 515 1897 486 1838 520 1839 610 1900 674 1901 657 1902 706 1903 879

Taking summary convictions, we find exactly the same slate of affairs. Excluding Maoris, the proportion of summary convictions for drunkenness per 1000 of the population was 10.28 in 1886 . 9.14 in 1890 (the figures for 18S7-9 are stated by the Registrar-General to be inaccurate, and are therefore not given), 8.13 in 1891, 7.87 in 1892, 7.63 in 1893, and 6.62 in 1894. Then comes the local option poil, and we find them 6.60 n 1895, 6.82 in 1896, 7.01 in 1837, 7.41 in 1898. 8.26 in 1899, 9.50 in 1900, 10.32 in 1901, 10.34 in 1902, and 11.03 in 1903. So that while nine years of settled licenses show a decrease in the proportion cf drunkards to each 1000 of the population amounting to 3.66, the .same nu her of years under reduction and part.al prohibition shows an increase amounting to 4.43. Truly, there is food for serious rliouglit in these figures. W hat do the Proli.bitiomsts professedly aim at? To abolish liquor in the first place. Admittedly this is mpossible unless prohibition is univerval; but the leaders of the Prohibition party will have nothing to do with colonial option. They intend, they tell us, to wipe out the trade piecemeal; they ask us to vote each in his own electorate, not only for no-license but also for reduct on; and they have urged upon us, year in and year out, that fewer licenses will mean loss drinking and consequently less drunkenness. What are they going to do now that they find they ai‘e wrong, and that both these things have increased, and have been increasing, only— mark that “only”—since they began to reduce tile number of licenses?

No doubt it would be unfair to lay this increase wholly to their charge, but surely it is significant chat the change from sobriety to the opposite is coincident with the arrival of prohibition ! Before that came, we were drink.ng less and becoming more sober da}' by day; from the day “no-license’* made its hrst appearance. until co-day, we have been drinking more and getting less sober day by day. When, moderation held the reins, good results were shown; surely the Prohibitionists can show better. They cannot! Then .n common honesty can they pursue their policy further ? It is no use ignoring the position any longer; it must be faced, and the failure must be accounted for by those to whom we have a right to look for an explanation, on the faith of whose representations votes for no-license have been g.veii. if they cannot or will not account for tlie failure, they cannot blame those who, however strongly they may favour temperance, come to the conclusion that Prohibition has been “weighed in the balance ancl found wanting/* To draw a red herring across the trail by pointing out that there are fewer conv.ctions for drunkenness in the actual no-license areas is neither profitable nor particularly honest. That drinking goes on in these districts cannot be doubted, when day after day we read in the papers of siy-grog raids and convictions involving heavy fines. In some cases the same offenders have been two and even three times before the Court, and have paid whatever monetary penalty lias been in- • dieted. It is impossible to suppose that these men carry on their illegal * trade from philanthropic motives —out of pity for the thirst of tlieir neighbours. No! they carry it on for profit, and that the profits are enormous is evidenced by tlie amounts that they are prepared to pay in fines, not less than by the fact that they are risking imprisonment. If the sellers are willing to run these risks, it is surely obvious that the business pays, and pays well. There would be no supply if there was no demand, and the only reasonable conclusion to come to is that drinking exists in these districts to as great, if not greater, a degree as it did under license. The lack of convictions is easily accounted for. The man who drinks in a lyVolnblted district must do one of two things. lie must drink at home, in which ease he can get as drunk as he pleases without any fear of police interference; or lie must drink in a sly-grog den, and in that case, if lie gets drunk, ilie seller will, for his own sake, take care lie is uot seen. One other alternative he has, and that is to go nco the nearest license town and drink there, and it arrested his case will swell tlie records of that town. ( \Vhat does it profit the colony if a man gets drunk in Invercargill instead of in v«oie, in Dunedin instead of u Port Ohalmers? There is another point, too, that, must not be overlooked. In license ’owns lh re are always reformers (P), who urge (he police to greater strictness in the matter of drunkenness, while in prohibition d.siricis iL is to everyone's in-

terest to conceal the fact that drunkenness exists. The sly-grog seller and the slygrog drinker are scarcely likely to invite interference; the Prohibitionist is too ■anxious for his statistics to take the burden on himself, while the moderate man has usually too much self-respect to turn informer.

The fact remains that prohibition has not succeeded in doing one th ug claimed for it, and it is clear that instead of any improvement resulting, drinking and drunkenness have increased at a rate undreamt of before the introduction of local opt on. The movement has had a fair Dial and has not succeeded; the sooner we realise this and revert to the old order of things, the better it will be for the sobriety and prosperity of the colony.

BEER. SPIRITS. \VI NE. to . to to to to bO . .zz yi yi .zz y* 'ZS *tH .5 ‘2 .ZZ co *2 7Z co f-rj lS o 5 o & o ju o S3 o r- O cd a> hjS ' —' c3 r o n ■ —' & «—. a w l-H w HH t—H Gals. Gals. . Gals, . Gals. Gals. Gals. 1883 . .. 9.435 8.709 1.088 1.005 0.315 0.291 1884. . .. 8.769 8.121 0.9'a3 0.923 0.272 0.253 1885 . .. 8.414 7.840 0.899 0.825 0.261 0.243 1886 .. . 7.861 7.333 0.820 0.765 0.212 0.188 1887 . .. 7.651 7.148 0.770 0.719 0.198 0.185 1888 .. . 7.133 6.670 0.820 0.767 0.167 0.156 1889 .. . 7.624 7.136 0.598 0.560 0.176 0.165 1890 .. . 7.899 7.402 0.693 0.649 0.184 0.172 1891 .. .. 7.646 7.168 0.689 0.655 0.172 0.161 1892 .. . 7.807 7.328 0.708 0.664 0.174 0.163 1893 . .. 7.7.16 7.255 0.697 0.656 0.170 0.159 189-1 .. . 7.381 6.911 0.648 0.611 0.144 0.136

1895 . 1896 . 1897 . 1898 . 1899 . 1900 . 1901 . 1902 . 1903 . Year. cc yo p oo oo oo <i b. i.o b>. V b< V io bo ft Cl C» oo to to OtO-0©0 3 "-IC>03 r -‘ Gals. Excluding Maoris. a a H 6.996 7.453 7.790 7.995 8.150 8 696 8.919 8.777 8.987 Gals. Including Maoris. tv W Cpppopppp -! ' 1 - 1 -1 in bi (35 bi 05 OI C< Cl IO 00 03 03 CIO to 0! I'OlO'l&WtfiP O p 5T Excluding Maoris. cc a H M Si ppopppooo - 1 '-1 - I Cl Cl p C*%3 bt l -‘ 10 p0 O' vO to c> O 0 p, » Including Maoris. H H3 gq p poop© p ©p ©COOt05DCl©i-'0< Q p CO Excluding Maoris. «■* <i H p o p p p p o © © ►—* >—* )— l 1 k™A h-1 MO-‘Wi-‘ occw^ b p CO Including Maoris. K