PROHIBITION MEETING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18687, 17 October 1922, Page 8

PROHIBITION MEETING

A meeting of prohibition workers and such cared to accept a general invitation to be present wag held in the Methodist Hall at Cavorsham last night. Mr R. W. Hail presided. The two speakers for (ho evening were -Archdeacon Russell, ■of Oamaru, and Mr J. S. Baxter, of Invercargill. Archdeacon Russell, began by remarking that as it was a racetii'ig of prohibition workers he did not suppose ho was expected to convert unbelievers. He stressed the point that in prohibition work it was the-personal element that counted. Speaking front his experience .of 11- years at Oamaru, he declared that if anyone said conditions were worse in no-licenso districts than in licensed districts it was an. absolute falsehood. Ho admitted that occasionally there was a “chiyoo” held, but it was an exceptional thing, and the mass of, the people did not come into contact with strong liquor at all. He quoted from a of Mr Mitchell (journalist, councillor, and member of educational bodies, who, ho said, had 40 years’ experience of Oamaru) to the effect (bat the increase in the population of Oamaru during the last five years, according to the census, was higher than the general average for the dominion; that, whereas there used to be a resident magistrate, it was now sufficient for a Dunedin magistrate to make a weekly visit; that although in 1805 the council lost £BOO in .license fees it , was able in the first year ’ of no-licenso to reduce the rates by 3d in the £, although the district was that year hit by a severe drought; that there bad not been u case of bankruptcy for many, years; and that softgoods shops, furnishers, fancy goods shops, booksellers, fruiterers, teasbops, and confectionery shops had increased greatly. Archdeacon Russell said his own experience of Oamaru bore out these facts. He declared that when he had once been commissioned with a gift of £5 he could not find a poor person to whom to give it, and that he met a Salvation Army captain who was in the same position. He maintained that the true conception of liberty was on the side of prohibition, and not on the side of the liquor traders, who only wanted the liberty to make money out of other people’s misery. Ho expressed his joy that the Anglican Church had come over so wonderfully to prohibition, and declared that nothing could stop its advance. Mr Baxter said’ that on the economical side the liquor traffic was the worst enemy of the retail trade in any town at any time. He contended that the lost revenue would be made up. through the Customs, through the greater purchasing power of the people, and answered' the objection to. making people moral by legislation by pointing to the fact, that Parliament was always mailing prohibitory laws. Speaking of bis 41 years’ experience of Invercargill, Mr Baxter said that when he went there there wore 32 bars, three wholesale licences, two chartered clubs, six bottle licenses, and two breweries. He treated the audience to a long account of personal tragedies and deaths that he had known of during that time, and said that in 16 years of no-licenso there had not been one single drunken tragedy. He declared that prohibition at Invercargill bad been, an emphatic success, and quoted figures, which he said were compiled by a leading land agent, to snow that the old hotels, since they had been put to other uses, had all increased greatly in value, in the first year of no-license the increase in the rates from these properties was £212. He declared that there was no sly grog-selling in Invercargill, though there had been a few cas-s. Mr Baxter concluded with an appeal to his audience to vote prohibition on patriotic grounds, for the sake of their country’s welfare, and quoted the opinions of public men as to the good effects of no-license at Invercargill. He will address a meeting at St. Clair to-night. *