NO LICENSE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12398, 13 November 1908, Page 3

NO LICENSE IN NEW ZEALAND.

THE LONDON "TIMES" SPEAKS OUT. '■•"■■■'• "To see ourselves, as others see us,," is always instructive. What the outside world :thinks of prohibition, movement' in New . Zealandmay be .judged by the following .. extract from the London "Times" of 11th February, 1907 :-"Looking fromiihe P bint of view of the .highest interests of the colony, "at the actual results of local option regime in New Zealand we cle.ai-ly see that against any real advantages which can be. not merely cl rimed but sustained by the prohibici: ists there" are somevory serior -.awbacks. - Assuming, for the sakrv • ;: argunaqnt,- that there, may have beon a- decrease^ in; the. amount of drunkenness, : -we. have to put against such. decrease (1) the intense bitterness of the feehiis which the local . option, iprppaganda har spread throughout^Tie colony, dividing it into two -great hostile camps, and setting neighbour against bour; (2) the disadvantages of local option laws ..which .fail to appeal to the moral sense: of the ' community. excite animosity rather than secure support, and ;;can:bT'carrie"d;out;eyeß in part, only,, by i the organisation^ a spy system >vhich brings; the ad-, ministration ; :of justice into contempt with all honest aiid honourable men.:; 73) the inexcusable interference with porsonal- liberty; (4) the -sensed mfustice- inflicted on working class and. middle: class people .by feprivmp them of: the opportunity of gettinp reasonable ■ refreshment . when + the\ want it,- while the well-to-do citizen can store as miich liquor as he pleases in his cellars ; and (6). .the effecVwhich the', whole ' controversy > has jn- divert, ing -the - attention 'of -the- electorate frop~ the real -problems, -colonial ■ or Imperial, a general election should involve, and concentrating, it, rather,, upon: side-issues which had much, beU -terete left to -the. conscience and ■ the practical comnioit. sense of the people.