THE LIQUOR QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21996, 4 July 1933, Page 12

THE LIQUOR QUESTION

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —In your Wednesday’s issue «Pessimist ” falls into a most common error—that of assuming that the temperance cause has only one objective, namely, abolition of the liquor traffic. That certainy is the ultimate goal, whether by prohibition, or in any, other way. The drink problem in New Zealand to-day is what it has always been—the problem of emancipating the community - from a social custom that is physically injurious, economically-unsound, morally destructive, the cause of untold misery to many innocent people, and scientifically indefensible. It is the problem between vested interests exploiting ignorance,. and the moral forces' battling for a higher and nobler national life. The remedy is twofold—the education of all sections of the community in regard to the nature of alcohol, the effects of the alcohol drinking habit, and the creation-of a conscience in regard to the facts which education discloses. The economic condition of this Dominion to-day demands a large reduction of the waste in drink consumption. The liquor trade impoverishes the people and, increases-poverty. Just recently, in Dunedin, three men, each with wives and children, were before the court on the same day for drunken offences. While the liquor trade mops up the unemployment wages of men like these, it is thrown on the rest of the community to clothe, feed, and support their dependents. This demonstrates in a simple and sinkinff manner. 1 what the liquor traffic is doing all alSng the line. There are one or two things that the temperance organisations should strive for atf the present time: (1) The restoration to Licensing Committees of the power to reduce licenses up to 25 per cent,; (2) The enforcement of the Licensing Act’in respect to trading after 6 o’clock, and on bundays. From past and present experience it appears that the enforcement of the law that has for its objective the controlling of the vested interests of the liquor traffic, licensed or otherwise, is exceedingly lax. —1 am, etc., Liberty.