MR G. HARNETT'S IMPRESSIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14281, 1 August 1908, Page 14

MR G. HARNETT'S IMPRESSIONS.

Sin,—lt is singular that the licensed victuallers always bring out their reports from a distance. Why could not Mr Harnett S stalcinjent have been obtained while he was in Invercargill or Dunodin, when he could have been tackled to verify tlicm ? Simply because it could easily have been thrown back at him. Knowing far more about Invercargill thin any of the British footballer team, I unhesitatingly say that the statement has been got tip when it is too late to get at Mr Harmitt, and thftt 19 on a par with Licensed, Victuallers' Association methods, /or the statement is absolutely untrue. It iHj-in my opinion, n>eaa far Mr HarneU, to make charges when he cannot, very well be made to prove them.—l am, etc., Fair Put axd No Favour. Sib,—l cannot help thinking that such conduct su> Mr Harnett has been guilty of regarding no-liceutse will Barely call forth some strong censure from our Otago footballers. Had Mr Harnett stated his opinions in oitr midst, so that he could have been made to prove his statements, tjmt would have been manly, but in face of such conduct as his, coming from a public visitor who has been treated handsomely everywhere in New Zealand by New Zeal antlers, we cannot, but feel a little ashamed of the Motherland. Of course, everyone sympathised with the British football team at it.s non-sucoess, but Mr Harnett's action against tho success of'no-liconsc has killed any sympathy many hundreds of New Zealanders liad for his team's misfortune, and you cannot help feeling that there is some prejudice behind it all. There is another feature about Mr Harnett's remarks: when one read th account first it suggested a badly-whipped boy—ho oould not retaliate against the one that whipped him, but his last cry was, "I'll do for your no-license if you have beaten u?." His torrent of abusive words would impress one with the belief tliat ho hod been very friendly with tho agent for the traffic. No-license has come to stay in New Zealand, as all old temperance workers fed the drink traffic has had its day, and a very wicked day it has been, as all our public institutions can testify. Where do the most of our old-age pensioners come from? Will tho trade's agent, who is fond of figures, answer that simple question? Any schoolboy oould soon answer it. Are our future men of our fair New Zealand going to grow up idiots or sensible, decent citizens? If the first, then tho liquor is to blame.: if tho sooond, then no-license will be the cause.—l am, etc., H. L. N. Sib,—l expected, when I saw the reference made by Mr Harnett, the manager of tho British football team, to the effeots of no-license in Invercargill, that the Liquor party would not be long before it would hail him as an authority on the subject, but I certainly did not expect such a tirade of absolute nonsense as its champion, tie Rev. Mr Thomson, has given way to in your paper of the 30th inst. Mr Harnett certainly, while be by his own admission could get no "refreshment" fcimsolf, saw more drunkenness in Invercargill than all tho rest of the inhabitants wore able to sec, but for Mr Thomson to say that he was absolutely unbiassed, and that he had more opportunities of seeing the true slate of matters than all his critics combined, is about the most' preposterous nonsense that I have ever seen from the pen of Mr Thomson, and thai is saying a great deal. Does ho think that Air Harnett, wanting his glass of beer and unable to get it, and spending two days in Invercargill altogether, is in a better position to form an opinion than his Worship the Mayir (Mayor for years both before and since tho carrying of no-license, a resident of Invercargill for not far short of half a century, and a man who has notoriously never taken sides with either (arty) anjl 100 of the leading professional and commercial men of Invercargill, abstainers and non-abstainers, to say. nothing of the polioe, whose recent report desoribes no-license as "a crowning success " V Mr Harnett may be an authority on football, but, according to the editor of the Wanganui Chronicle, be is scarcely the man to give a cool and unbiassed judgment on any great social question. " lie talked for 10 minutes with all the force of a tornado, and bis language was scarcely suited to a. drawing-room. Some people, not over Bqoeamish, might luye called it rather dirty." "His windy tirade was so obviously exaggerated and so manifestly ridiculous" that the editor "declined to take his denunciations seriously." If this is tie best kind of champion Mr Thom-' son can got, I am afraid his case is in a bad way—as I believe it is. I myself was about town tho whole dav Mr Harnett refera to—Wednesday,—an if attended tho British-Southland football match in the afternoon, to witness which some 8000 or 10,000 persons assembled. I 6aw no sign of drink whatever on any pereon, neither did the Mayor nor the Prime Minister, who were both very much in /evidence among the public. This state of things wobld have been quite impdssible durinp the days of lioeuse. 1 have been a resident of Invercargill for over 40 years, and am about tho streets everv day, and constantly until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. I have not seen a dozen drunken people in the streets since no-license came intoforoo, now two yeaiß. During a similar period of liocsnss I saw many hundreds. Mr Harnett in lus interview with the editor of the Wanganui Chronicle said ■that Dunedin was "absolutely the most immoral city he had over struck." Will Mr Thomson take this as conclusively proved on Mr Harnett's authority, and impute the admitted superiority of Invercargill in this respoot to no-lioense? It would ba only fair of him to do so.—l *m, etc., , R. Invercargill, July 31.