PROHIBITION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 42

PROHIBITION

(To the Editor “N.Z. Mail.”) Sir, —The New Zealand Alliance ban been, *nd is now, making strenuous efforts to carry no-Lioense at the polls to be taken next November. If prohibition, is carried, it does not mean only closing the hotels (as in the past), as most people imagine, but the total extinction of all wine, spirit, and beer licenses, as clause 4 in the Licensing Apt gassed last year provides, where prohibition is carried. that it shall not be lawfuL to grant or renew any publican’s, New Zealand] wine accommodation, bottle, packet, wholesale conditional license, or charter of any club. It therefore follows that, if no-license becomes law, those who want liquor of any kind must import it in wholesale quantities from places where licenses exist, and then in a very roundabout way, as the law makes it very difficult to get liquor in prohibited places; and as only wealthy people can afford this, it means that the middle and working class will be deprived of liquors of any kind, except they get in the way I will show. Prohibition does not mean stopping the drink traffic, as alcohol can be very easily and cheaply distilled in New Zealand. In lieu of properly conducted hotels, we shalL have sly-grog places and houses of dubious fame all over the city, selling vile liquors made in the colony, on which no duty has been paid; and to make up the loss on Custom’s revenue on alcohol and beer, we shall all have to pay increased taxation and with the same amount of drinking still going on but in an illicit way. It is from those places that the poorer section of the community would draw their supplies. The Alliance has quoted prohibition districts in New Zealand in support of the aiguments for no-license, but it must be borne in mind that the drinking class who are unable to get liquid refreshments in no-license places go to non-prohibited districts and get what alcohol they like, and in many casea .pend portion of their money in the shops there. Supposing, for argument’s sake, no-license were carried all through the Wairarapa, what a gain it would be to Wellington business people, as we should have hundreds of people coming here for the purpose of getting liquor, and they would, of course, spend their money on other supplies. Properly regulated and well conducted) hotels are necessary in every civilised community ; without them we shall not have any travelling public and tourists. Is it because some persons abuse liquor that the majority shall suffer for the minority, for no advocate of prohibition dare affirm that the drunken portion in any community is in the majority. I have resided in New Zealand for oyer forty years, and have lived and frequently visited hotels in portions of the North Island for the last twenty-five yeans, and I say that the hotels, as now existing, are a credit to the colony. The Alliance has quoted the opinion of the King’s medical adviser, that alcohol is in j unions to mankind. We all lcnow that doctors differ,- and equally eminent medical opinions can be given on the advantage of the use of stimulants. It seems to me that alcohol is like any other article of food—good for some and bad for others. It may seem very strange, hut it is nevertheless true, that advocates of no-license, when travelling away from home, generally stop at hotels instead of boardinghouses.—l am, etc., MODERATION. August 19th.