EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10018, 8 December 1908, Page 1

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Thk position of the liquor traffic is perilous. That conclutiif. ALL-Aiisomiisc sion is easy; but tkakfic. how to avert the disaster which, by its very nature, the traffic is inevitably bringing" upon itself, is not so easy, as the Christchurch Press says, though not in the same -way. We should say that it is intensely difficult. The helpless participants in the business—the brewers and hotelkeepers—are being harried by their friends to •'set their house in order," but they are carried down by the flood of the traffic in which they are engaged just as surely as the drunkard who drinks their stuff and surrenders his hard-gotten gains with his reason and health. It is all very well to counsel "the trade" to "carry out needed reforms." What could they do': They could abolish barmaids, and the open bar, and reduce the inflated Tents paid for licensed premises. The l'rees thinks these changes would effect some good, and says that "it would be easy enough to_remove the most objectionable features of the sale of liquor. It introduces municipal control, only to knock it on the head, and at last comes back to the idea that private ownership would be the best, if it were purged of its "worst features." 15ut if that is impossible, then it favors the placing before the electors of the issue of municipal control as an alternative, though it suspects that the system would produce vicious consequences. So that the conclusions of our contemporary are that the traffic is bad, apparently beyond reined}- —that no reform of the existing svstem would render it tolerable; but that." as the sale of drink must be maintained, perhaps it would be better to adopt the municipal system of sale, though it would probably lead to gross abuses. If this is not a fair interpretation of outcontemporary's reasoning, then we confess that we do not know what it means. We agree with it in everything except the lamer and impotent conclusion that, although the traffic is at best a nuisance, it must be maintained by means which may be as corrupt and corrupting as itself. It is tickling the subject with a feather to sav that the abolition of barmaids "would go" a long way to allay opposition." There are numerous drinking shops in Xew Zealand where barmaids are not employed, but winch are nevertheless nurseries for inebriates and turn out their tale of hesotted vouths who keep the business going till tliev can no longer swallow. Nor would the immoderate" drinker be arrestvd in his follv bv a reduction in the rents of public-houses. This would cheaper. driiiK. so that it would be possible for drinkers to drink more than ever. It is a pin- that the metropolitan journalists cannot' freelv express their opinions on the Mibj-.-ct. "and that they arc forced into sii' h an awkward corner in their obligation to find some excuse for "the trade" winch is intended io draw the people's attention from the main issue. No intelligent student of the drink peril can arrive- at anv other conclusion than that it is the al.ohol which is the source of all the evil, and that it is useless to abolish anytiiui" so long as that remains for common use." What would the acute writers in our greatest newspapers say if we were to suggest that opium would be robbed of its nar'-otic quality if it were sold under the municipal svstem? It is only too true that the sale of drink for private gam is attended with the most callous treatment of bar habitues; but it is useless to tell the sellers of beer and whisky to be good whilst there is a chance of making sixpence. What of r'the."story about the brothers Kershaw. Xo sooner was the local option votins over, than "the tradfr' seemed to throw off all restraint, if it was ever subject to any. The two brothers Kershaw -'were said to have had severai drinks during the day," said the Press Association message, and were walking home at about 9.30 when one stumbled on the kerbing- and fell on the fragments of a bottle which had fallen out of Ins pocket and been broken. He died as a consequence. Let the public read between the lines. The narrative needs no elaboration. The young men had been plied with liquor as though they were common receptacles without either bodies or souls. It is the same everywhere: but the brutalities of the traffic are so common that the public have become accustomed to them, and thev will exist so long as alcoholic drinks are sold as beverages, no matter how.