TEMPERANCE REFORM COUNCIL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3994, 30 September 1930, Page 70

TEMPERANCE REFORM COUNCIL.

The monthly meeting of the Temperance Reform Council was held on Tuesday evening in Slade Hall, Central Alission. The president (Air H. S. Adams) occupied the chair, and there was a good attendance of delegates. Mr D. K. Al'Donald laid before the meeting an outline of the results obtained in Victoria at the recent State prohibition —liquor poll. These showed that 419,005 votes had been cast for the abolition of the liquor traffic; the largest vote ever registered in any State in the southern hemisphere for the reform. Eight large electorates and 300 populous towns showed a dry majority. The temperance forces, it was stated, had now initiated a campaign for a further restriction of liquorselling hours, including Saturday afternoon closing, and the restoration to the electors of local option. The Victorian press largely admitted the right of the demands of these 400,000 electors to serious consideration. A discussion was held on the evils of “ Medicated and Tonic Wines ” in the Dominion, two facts being specially stressed:—(l) That they had no medicinal or tonic values, and (2) that they were simply strongly fortified alcoholic drinks and really constituted unlicensed sale of alcohol.

The following resolution was adopted:—• “ The Otago Temperance Reform Council desires to direct the attention of the Minister and directors of the Government Health Department to the exaggerated, misleading, and untrue advertisements appearing in the Dominion concerning the nutritious and health-giving properties of ‘ Medicated, and so-called Tonic Wines? It has been scientifically demonstrated through repeated analysis that the alleged nutritive value of these drinks is practically absent, and that they contain anything from 10 to 23 per cent, of alcohol. Some of them contain another dangerous drug, cocaine. A Select Committee reported to the House of Commons in 1914, ‘ That grave injury is caused to the public, by the existing large sale of medicated wines. The quantity of meat extract is trifling, and’in any case it is not nutritive, having only one-twentieth of the nitrogenous constituents of lean beefsteak? This council therefore petitions that these drinks be brought: (1 Under the Pure Foods Act; (2) that misleading advertisements be made illegal; (3) that every such liquid containing alcohol must have a New Zealand Government analysis of the complete contents on printed labels affixed to the bottle or container; (4) that all such liquids should pay duty at the same ratio of their alcoholic strength as beverage spirits.” The New Zealand temperance paper, the Vanguard, was under consideration, and a sub-committee was set up to devise means to increase its circulation

_ Air James Adam dealt with the question of the recent canvass poll of illicit liquor sellers in New York city ; conducted by the New York World, which showed that of 200 of these law-breakers, they polled a 20 to 1 vote for the repeal of the prohibition laws. A resolution of sympathy with the relatives of the late Mr J. H. Milligan, of Oamaru, was passed, Mr Milligan having been one of the early pioneers of the temperance movement in the Oamaru district.