A LITTLE MORE ABOUT PROHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12991, 4 June 1904, Page 14

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT PROHIBITION.

■TO THE EDITOR. . ■ i ■. Sir.,—When we ask the busines.?'men in Ashburton how prohibition has affected .business they will answer, if they aro prohibitionists, that it has improved all round; if not prohibitionists, .that business generally has gone back. In.the same manner Wβ are told-by prohibitionists that|;hey know of many men who before were- heavy drinkers and now drink nothing but water; Others tell us that heavy drinkers oi their acquaintance are wovee off than before, -because they have to pay more for (heir-drink... I know of ono family who are i:u the deepest poverty on account of.the husband refusing to lake to . tho water like tho, reformed. acquaintances of prohibitionists. Tho nearest licensed place, is about .10 miles from hero. On a Saturday, evening a crowd of riven with sacks step on to tlie express train. The. sacks contain bottles,'c-r a final! cask. They return -by the next tra:V.i with-the casks filled. This is cSllod. - ,: fetching honie tho Sunday baby." A friend .'aid: "You cannot go by Ashburton, because prohibition has never had a o)u\nce here-." No, and it never will—neither here nor in any other place.

The club here foils drinks to its members cheap, ttho membership has. increased so that the management has decided not. to accept any mere, as they cannot accommodate 'mow. The members number now 600. That is certainly good for a small placo like Afliburton: and:all these drink. There aro several hundreds of-.applicants waiting for the first vacancy.' There tiro besides other little-private oliibs, where men keep a supply of beer, between them. I was in Ashburton before- prohibition on several occasions. I never saw much drunkenness. True, I noticed occasionally that, men came ito the dinner table the worse of drink ; .at tho boarding-houses,: but I-notice the same still. Wo aro told that the'open bars save the young people, Wo cannot know who Bto thus saved; but I do know cases of young men in Bruce wli<> have- taken to drinU very much simco prohibition, through getting into company of. those who kept a. bottle. It is a common-thing for young follows there to club together and get a, dozen bottles, This is called ■' getting up a syndicate." Tho prohibitionists horo rail at the club because, as they say, .it encourages drimking habits moro than any publicliouse. In parentheses, the sarhe/men

had just 10> minutes before asserted thero was no drinking in Ashbiirton'. -Yet they refused to accept Sir Seddon's bill, which would have killed the club. Tlidir illogical attitude in this respect will certainly gn against them next election, depriving them of many votes from the', working' elate. And iV certainly is a direct infiilfe to tho working classes: it.says, in effect,'the well-to-do can do with their'money what, they like and have as much drink as they chose; but tho woYkirg people cannot be trusted with their money. Prohibition, ,likev land nationalisation and socialism generally, is an attempt to cure an evil without strikiaig at the root or it. Whether the tenant pays his rent to the Goyerrimont or to a. private, man matters nothing. What decs matter is tho amount-of rent he pays, and that is determined .by causes removed from the control of cither Government or-private individual, and it does not matter whether a man drinks in a publiehouse or \a a club, in hia own house or. at. a social in a public hall. What docs matter is that ho drinks.— I am, etc;, Ashburton, May 30. 0. E. Hugo.