HOW PROHIBITION KILLS TRADE IN BALCLUTHA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2361, 25 May 1899, Page 61

HOW PROHIBITION KILLS TRADE IN BALCLUTHA.

Under the above .heading "Veracity" writes to the Wyndham Farmer : — " The leading business man of Balclutha, as well as one of the most legitimately enterprising, is William Guest, general merchant. The striking success of this man is an object lesson in shrewdness and energy under adverse circumstances — for it is no discredit to Mr Guest to here state that but scanty educational facilities were his at the age when his young idea began to shoot. But a few years ago, comparatively speaking, he arrived in Balclutha, merely an ordinary labourer, glad to take whatever work honestly came his way. Next he purchased a hawker's van, stocked it with sellable lines, and traded them throughout Clutha district. This venture succeeding. Guest opened a little shop in the town, which his wife — a woman with more than an ordinary business ' turn ' — managed while he continued the hawking. Business prospered with the industrious couple ; they went into a larger shop ; next they built a commodious two-storey ■warehouse ; recently a large, addition was made to the building, which is one of the laTgest up-country concerns of the kind in the province : now the enterprising proprietor is undertaking the erection of a large grain store 50 x 22, also a concrete cellar 25 x 22 for storing bacon and butter. Last week Mr Guest acquired a large flaxmill. Truly, the rise of this successful man has been most marked, and it has been begotten of a stendy persistence and honesty of purpose that are worthy of all praise. It seems only the other day when the present writer knew Mr Guest to be bartering drapery Tcnicknacks with the farming folk for eggs and mbbitskins, and ths like. To-day he doea one of the largest merchant's business in Otago outside of Dunedin — certainly the largest in Clutha County. He is blessed with a very shrewd and capable partner in Mrs Guest, his cheery and amiable wife. Mr Guest is reputedly a very generous employer, and it is well known that numerous are the cases of his doing good-hearted actions to persons not so well endowed with wordly goods as he. What will probably strike many persons most forcibly on their reading this pke'.ch is the fact that Guest is, and always has been, a prominent member of the nolicense party in that celebrated prohibition district. Hence, there is a moral to evolve out of the foregoing facts which should interest all who assert that prohibition kills trade. It is abundan'ly evident that it has not killed Mr Guest's bjg trade; on Uie contrary, one who ought \o know has informed deponent that Mr Guest's turnover in a twelvemonth is 50 per cent, "better to-day than it was in the halcyon times-of license in the town on the banks of the Molyneux."