SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15043, 10 April 1919, Page 4

SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

ABOLITION OF LIQUOR, FAVOURED.

OVER THIRD OP CRLME DIRECT- - LV DUE TO LIQUOR.

Vh* a * • Wellmßton, April 8. ATH^n °L the New ZealandAlliance called on Su- Robert Stout to ™U he + would make any pronouncement on the use made by the "Moderates" of-some speeches of his. Sir Robert Stout said:—"l n mv opinion the quotation that has been published from my article to the • 'Timaru Herald' (of 1914) might mislead people,, as it is taken from its setting. I was not dealing with the right of the State to maintain its existence and to maintain the health of the p^eonle. I believe it is the duty of the btate to even insist on conscription if it . is necessary _for the defence of the nation, and I also . believe that the State cannot .allow poisons to be sold at the will of any person. It must secure the health" of the people, and this licensing question i/ a question of health and of morality^ and if we find anything interfering with the health: ■ of the people/or with them, either physically or morally, it is the' duty of the State to interfere and 'to preserve the nation from "destruction. Personal. liberty must give way to the State. "I understand it has been stated that I am opposed to compensation. Our Parliament by its Licensing Act, 1910, gave compensation, for if national prohibition were carried licenses were' to continue for four and a-half years. That would mean a waste of perhaps eighteen millions of. money. The proposed compensation was put in to prevent the trade being ended suddenly, whereas the four and a-half millions is proposed with a view to ending the trade immediately, and it is for the people to say whether they will pay four .and a-half millions to end the sal© immediately, or pay eighteen millions spread over four years, and that is the' question people have to determine. "It is not for me to dictate to any electors. Any man of ordinary com-, monsense could only. give one answer. The reason I have taken a keen interest in the liquor question has been, what I have seen in my stay in NewZealand, now over fifty-five years. I know what has happened to many ofjthe boys who were under m<» at school. I was a teacher in the years 1864 to 1867. Many of my brightest boys have fallen in'the'race of life through intoxicants. Many men who would havebeen a glory to New Zealand have passed away from the same cause. I know from my.experience as a lawyer and a, judge that least one-third of the criminals directly, and many more, indirectly, found themselves in gaols from indulgence in intoxicatingliquor."* •» : ;