PROHIBITED ASHBURTON

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1751, 27 September 1905, Page 69

PROHIBITED ASHBURTON

(By the Rev R. S. Gray.) "Of the making of books/’’ and of the reports of Special Commissioners, "there is no end/' Another Commissioner' has been to this hub of the No-license world. Me also was unacquainted with the district or the people, with the exception of halt a dozen, and none of these business men. He was certainly not so young as the first Commissioner. He was, it must be said, attached to a party and had sympathies, but so far as was possible he. looked with unbiassed eye and thought with unprejudiced mind, add the record of his impression he faithtuuy gives. He was unknown even by name to ninety per cent, of the people he mterviewed, and his occupation, when guessed at, was held to be, what tor the nonce it was, a reputable representative of a great journal. He would gladly place his note-book in the hands of the editor of that j ournal to allow him, with his personal knowledge of the residents of Ashburton and his belief in the common honesty ot his Commissioner, to write it up without comment of any kind. THE RESULT OF PROHIBITION. There are certainly results that can, even at this short distance from the abolition of licenses' and the closing oi the club, be fairly gauged. There . is already an effect upon the drinking habits of the people, the commercial prosperity, and the general morality ox the place. Brink for consumption in the home is easily procurable, and great numbers who were accustomed to get their liquor at the open bar or the club now keep it in their homes. One carrier who had carried for the hotels and now performed the same office, for private houses was ofr opinion that very nearly as much liquor as before came into the town, and this opinion "was shared by several others. Other residents and good drinking ones, too —scouted the idea. The Commissioner inquired whether there was not danger of the children in the homes becoming familiar with, it, and was informed by some that the danger did exist, and by -others —in every case by people who were qualified by experience to speak—that men were careful not to di'ink before their' children, or leave drink carelessly about. He is himself of opinion that thqre is a danger, but that- the risk of children learning to drink in the home , is unduly magnified. He also attaches but little importance to the pile of whisky, beer, and stout bottles said to be collected within a certain period. That fact is open to bo> many interpretations that its value is infinitesimal. . SET GROG-SELLING. This Commissioner had to "take some things for granted.” Sly grog was one. A great deal that could be heard, he heard, and is in perfect agreement with the first Commissioner. The sergeant of police is tackling the problem bravely, and the risk of being either caught on the premises or seen about the neighbourhood is probably acting as a healthy deterrent. There is within the last month or two a marked diminution, so unbiassed witnesses assert, in the number of places where drink can be readily obtained, and in the quantity of the liquor procurable. The noble proprietors of these philanthropic institutions, which are run in the interests of public morality, as. a protest against interfex*ence with the • glorious "liberty- of the subject,” are so impressed with the determination of the sergeant not to accept this view of their business that there is practical agreement with the report of Commissioner No. 1, that customers are not allowed to remain on the premises longer than will permit of their getting on the outside of their individual grog. Indeed, this must be so. Drunkenness cannot be hidden, and the absence of "drunks” proves the contention, for the intoxicating power of slygrog, as against licensed liquor, is notorious. , The bottle trade is said not to be of serious dimensions. One expert; who from his appearance had lived for long years, at close quarters with every liquid that was drinkable, save only water and milk and the much-de-spised "soft tack,” and who "knew every place in the town where it could be got,” asserted, as be turned a huge quid in his mouth, that "there was precious little liquor in any of them—the sergeant was too lively.” Opinions are freely expressed as to the difficulty of obtaining a conviction in the Magistrate's Court, and while very many hold that upon the evidence submitted no other verdict than the customary acquittal can be arrived at, there are not wanting a great number who think that sympathy with the law instead of an apparent sympathy with the law-breakers, would render the taaik of the police less disheartening. The general opinion is that everybody in the town, except the Magistrate! knows that the defence usually relies upon the Adamantine character of the swearing, the only difference of opinion being a nice point as to whether the Court is not compelled to discharge a man if he and his customers "will hut swear hard enough. Simple folk think that the circumstances should be taken into account, and the prediction is freely made that if only the Stipendiary Magistrates of Ashburton and Invercargill could exchange Courts for a while, the sly grog-seller's life in Ashburton. would become an intolerable burden, whatever happened to Invercargill. HOW TRADE IS AFFECTED. It cannot be disputed that no-license has not yet affected the whole business of the town in such a marked. degree that a practically unanimous decision as to its benefits is possible. There are tradespeople who state’’that their businesses have suffered. These, however, are a very small minority, and in many cases of the particular class of trade that would he expected to suffer, such as, for instance, the tobacconists. A few cases of other trades were also discovered. hut in some of them, at least, the

shrinkage wa9 due to the fact that newcomers had opened in opposition; and in yet others to the direct loss of the hotelkeepers’ patronage. A very general experience in the drapery and clothing trade was that the men's clothing department was not doing so well,, but the household drapery sale® had increased, and in several cases so greatly asi to more than compensate for the decreases. "My careful opinion.” said one business man, who required some pressing, "is that the ■women have more money to spend; but the men do not come in so often as formerly.” The phenomenal .increase in the business done by the Farmers’ Co.-op. during the past two years ie a matter of common knowledge, and must be given due weight in any estimate of the state of the business of the town. It has, of course, affected the ordinary retailers in a marked degree. The position as it appeal's to one of the foremost business men in the borough is thus stated. Ashburton was never so prosperous as it is now. Money is certainly a little tight. The farmers are increasing their holdings and their stock, and a great deal of grain is stored, the sale of which would set the money in circulation. The trade lost by the absence of the shearers and harvest hands was not large, and the town is better without it. The prosperity cannot be claimed by no-license, but any man who says it has injured the town does not know what he is talking about. It is absolutely ludicrous to talk of the town being ruined by the closing of half-a-dozen hotels. It seems pertinent to add that no-license was never expected by its advocates to immediately revolutionise a whole town commercially. They have consistently argued that nolicense means increased prosperity. The trade has as strenuously declared that nolicense means depression and ruin. Let him who reads judge! The building trade is brisk, and scores of ottages recently built can be seen all over the outskirts of the town. Land values are high. One instance was quoted—it must surely be exceptional—in which a town section, purchased less than five years ago for £lB, sold three years since fox' .£SO, and changed hands less than a month ago at ,£K>O. A seemingly more significant- fact is the increased consxunption of gas, the figures for which are as follows: Cubic Feet. Increase ’ between 1901-2 and 1902-3, last two years of license ... ... ... ••• 556,200 Between 1902-3 and 1903-4, last year license, first year nolicense ... ... ••• ••• 1,378,300 Between 1903-4 and 1904-5, first two yeai’s no-license- ... ... 488,700 The darkness in which the publichouses have been left seems to mean, in more senses than one, increased light in the homes of the people. THE MORAL ASPECT This part of the question, possibly because this commissioner was biassed in the direction of believing it to be the all-im-portant issue, was specially investigated, with results which speak loudly for themselves.

In place of the “one or two. perhaps three or four homes, miserable before, which have been improved by the closing of the hotels/’ he waa constantly met with such statement® as these, made quit© as often by anti-prohibitionists as by prohibitionists:—"Three or four! Thirty or forty would be a low estimate!” One business man who carefully explained that he was not a prohibitionist, and who was afterwai'ds declared by many other business men of both colours to be one of the etraightest men in the town, stated that ip one particulai* line of his trade, one. of the necessaries of life, his cash takings had increased 60 per cent, owing to the increased purchasing power of the people and their ability to pay cash where before this was impossible. "Tell the editor of the 'Times' from me,” he added, "and he has known me for twenty-five years, that if he wants a list of scores of people vvhose homes have been changed by nolicense, I can let him have it.” Landlords who had lost good tenants because they had built their own homes, employers Avhose workmen, although not totally abstaining, did not now work for three weeks, and then “bust” for one, an employer of casual labour- who had given an ola-time characterless drunk difficult and confidential work, involving money, and had found him perfectly trustworthy, relatives of hard drinkers, sobered up and now never the worse for liquor, tradesmen with a knowledge of the habits of then* customers—all agreed that the benefits of no-license in this regard were great and unmistakable. Names of residents of the town and district who had ceased their excessive drinking and whose homes were distinctly bettered were readily obtainable. And the only conclusion Commissioner No. 2 could come to. was that the moral benefits could hardly be overstated. You simply cannot walk down an Ashburton street with your ears and your eyes open without gathering positive, indeed superlative evidence that under no-lioense the moral wreckage and refuse of license are being rapidly cleaned up. And this is not all. Young men and middle-aged men and old men who, under the old regime, put in their Saturday nights, and a good number of hours on other nights at the hotels, have declared without qualification, and in tones varying from matter of fact to emphatic, that drunkenness of the old sort has quite disappeared. One half the arrests under nolicense are of people who either arrived in the town drunk or biought their liquor in from outside. It would be wrong to let this article go without qualification. The Commissioner (No. 2) admits that he went to Ashburton with some prejudice, and he has been obsessed with the fear that such prejudice might colour his expressed view. He wishes to put on record, however, the fact that he has omitted almost altogether the testimony of pronounced prohibitionists, and that his impression of the successful working of no-license in Ashburton has been de- ! liberately understated, so that "the enemy might not have occasion to blaspheme.”