THE LIQUOR ISSUE.

Southland Times, Issue 22730, 5 November 1935, Page 4

THE LIQUOR ISSUE.

To the Editor. Sir,—Such a letter as that of “Lover of Liberty” would be hardly worth answering but for the possibility of its deceiving the many who do not look sufficiently deeply into statements such as he makes. For example, he says, liquor is driven into the homes of the people and amongst their children. Driven into the homes of the people— Mr Editor, does he mean _ that it is driven into his home with a force pump, and he cannot help himself? I have had a home for a long time now, Mr Editor, but that has never been my experience. Does he mean that because Noah made a sickening beast of himself, the Bible is his authority for doing the same? And does he not know that the text which he attributes to Christ as permission to the world, was in reality written by Paul to one sick man? And who told him that Prohibition has failed? Does he know that since repeal in U.S.A, of the prohibition that so lamentably failed, in Los Angeles alone, there has been an increase of 178 per cent, in arrests of women for drunkenness; that whereas before repeal motor accidents showed an average decrease of 77.43 deaths per month, eight months of repeal showed an average of 42.25 more deaths per month than the same periods before repeal; that the San Francisco Press recently denounced saloons where girls of 14 and 16 years of age were made intoxicated and subsequently outraged;

that an investigation revealed “hundreds of saloons selling to minors, and white slave dealers picking up girls therein”; that in one prison alone where before repeal they had an average of 250 prisoners, they now have 902. Surely Mr Editor, in the face of such deplorable facts as these, the fact that ministers of the Gospel are not preaching Prohibition from the pulpit is monstrous indeed. Does even a “Lover of Liberty” want to. see the dirty old conditions, with their miserable bars at the street corners where men can have the benefit of a little “refreshment m a “decent” manner, and with wretched, anxious women waiting in sordid homes for the return of their “protector —ye Gods! If this be liberty, let us have a dictator to keep us clean. Mr Editor, let us hope that Invercargill and other similarly fortunate No-License areas retain the blessings they have had for thirty years.—l am, etc., A. E. WAITE, J.P., Methodist Minister and Mayor of Bluff.