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MR. LYSNAR'S TOUR.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST NO-LICENSE

(Published by arrangement.)

Mr W. D. Lysnar returned from Auckland by the s.s. Arahura on "Sunday after a visit to Wellington and Auckland, where be addressed meetings m the Town Hall m both of those places against No-license. Mr Lysnar states that he was satisfied with the results of both meetings, which were very large, and whilst there was a good deal of hostility shown at the start of each meeting he was glad to say it largely disappeared towards the end. Oh the whole they were unquestionably good meetings. In the Auckland meeting, although he asked Mr Boddie to take the chair, he declined. Mr Lysnar said he dealt specially with the erroneous figures put forward by the No-license party and Mr Boddie, and he regretted to see they were publishing these incorrect figures tluoughout the Dominion since he challenged them, including one lot m this journal on the 4th inst. The announcement about the Chicago vote by a quarter of a million majority against prohibition was received with very great applause at his Auckland meeting. It only appeared m the Auckland Star that evening for the first time, and apparently the big audience had not known of it. Mr Lysnar stated he made bold to predict, after reading the intense hostile feeling shown m. the "United States and Canada, that National prohibition never become law there. ■■>; Mr Lysnar states that while m Wellington a gentleman, gave him ' a copy of the Vancouver Daily World of February 22, 1919, which' contained a report of a great meeting denouncing prohibition, and among the speakers was Sir Charles Tupper, who had been Minister of Justice and. Attorney -General for Canada. Another speaker was the At- : torney-General for British Columbia, and these gentlemen both strongly denounced the Prohibition Act. At the same meeting the Rev. H. C. L. Hooper stated : "His experience led him to the conclusion that effective prohibition was •v. impossible, and that his own aim m common with prohibitionists was to try and make better people, but under prohibition he did not think it could * 3! |W done. Speaking of what he termed y that abominable stuff called near beer*' tie said that a reputable person had told him he had gone into one of the bars where it was sold, and had there Been a negress serving the beer over the counter while two women went around among the men making, dates, and m the Bame place he had seen one man collapse , and fall senseless to the floor. - His ovm assistant had told him that drunkenrfess was common iri the downtown bars. He believed himself that drink m moderation, was giod for "* a man, and if prohibition was contin,ued they would all live to be sorry for it." Mr Lysnar states he told his audience that there were two things indicated by these remarks. The first was that by our present license law m New* Zealand we had got rid of barmaids, but by prohibition they became re-establish-ed, and not only that but experience showed that it encouraged houses of illfame, as these and the sly-grog shops ran very much together. The "near beer" quoted above is really adulterated beer. It is so named because it is am "near" the legal beer as possible. Under the prohibition law you are allowed to have beer with about two per cent. .of alcohol, and so they manufacture beer es near that as possible, and then other chemicals and ingredients are used to strengthen its effectiveness, such as tobacco juice, methylated spirits, quassia leaves, glucose, oil of vitriol, and sulphuric acid, besides other things which are much more harmful than good beer, but the law cannot' stop this as no law can stop anybody drinking beer with two per cent, liquor and strengthened with, we will say, methylated spirits and tobacco juice. In this way people have. learned to. defy the law by adulterating if with something which is not spirits. ' Mr Lysnar states that he met a wellknown business man m Wellington who, had just returned from the States, and" this gentleman, said that he had several glases of this near beer at different, places he went to, and that every time he had it it took him. nearly two days to get rid of his headache, but he said it was being very largely patronised and varied very much, of course, m quality. One of his friends had a single glass of it and he lost his memory for several hours as a result. In a New York journal dated February 2lßt last the following significant information appears: — "Washington, Eebruary ,21st. — England has filed with the State Department a peremptory objection to the issuance of passports to any temperance or' prohibition advocates from the United States to any part of the British Dominions." From this it will be seen that the British Cabinet are waking up to the danger that is being created by these No-license advocates travelling about. .'As showing how the law is defied and evaded this same journal quotes the fact th_fr*tn defiance of the law hundreds of inhabitants of the prohibited State of j Michigan were carrying m huge quanti- ! ties of liquor when they were stopped. hy the police. The article goes on to

\v : "Up to the time the Government interfered the stream of liquor into Michigan broke records. An average of eighty automobiles an hour—more than a machine a minute — passed through Monroe, Mich., every one loaded to capacity. The last interurban car to leave Toledo carried sixty suitcases and eleven boxes filled with whisky." Mr Lysnar says it is perfectly farcical for these American people to talk about prohibition under conditions such as these. In the same journal is the following telegraphic message, which is very significant : ■ "Detroit, Feb. 21st.— Three whisky runners were killed at Wyandotte, near here, when a street car struck their automobile. Their machine was - loaded with whisky." Mr Lysnar stated that he was urged to address meetings m the South Island, besides other parts of the North Island, but he felt he had done sufficient, by addressing the meetings m the two chief centres, and m both cases all the press m the localities gave good report* of the meetings, which would obtain very wide circulation throughout the whole Dominion. He considered that there would be a big reaction at the coming poll, and the fact of the prohibition party using the funds of fair-minded contributors for publishing incorrect data would do their cause much harm. •

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19190407.2.10

Bibliographic details

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14880, 7 April 1919, Page 3

Word Count
1,097

MR.LYSNAR'S TOUR. Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14880, 7 April 1919, Page 3

MR.LYSNAR'S TOUR. Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14880, 7 April 1919, Page 3

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