OUR DRINK BILL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144359, 25 March 1914, Page 7

OUR DRINK BILL.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Your “Our Own Correspondent” (Wellington) shows clearly in, his comments on ih© drink bill wheie his heart is, where his treasure is-pwith tho liquor trade. Every part ot his extract from the Post might well be criticised, but 1 confine myself to one point. He is quite sure that “prohibition and nolicense” (by tho way we have not got prohibition yet) aro tho cause of the increased drink bill of 1913 over that 0 f 1896—the year of our absolutely lowest per capita drink expenditure; yet when he faces tho slight reduction of 1913, on that of 1912, ho attributes it to a “slight curtailment ol the spending power of tho people.” Certainly if iho reduction is to be attributed to tho curtailment of spending power, which is very questionable since 1913 has been a year of great prosperity, then tho increase since 1896 might bo attributed to the bounding prosperity of the intervening 18 years. There never has been such a period of prosperity; yet, notwithstanding the great prosperity of the period, the drink bill does not "yet mount up to the per head expenditure of the early eighties, when these records were first kept. The cold facts are that while the greater spending power of the people has let more money go into liquor, the temperance sentiment, aided by a small measure of no-license, has kept down the average expenditure to less than that of 1885. But “our own” blames no-license for the increase during the last 12 years, and yet in 1912 (we have not yet got the 1913 figures) the Parliamentary returns show that while the liquor expenditure in the no-license areas was about 18s per head that in the rest of the country was over £4 per head. The time is not yet to give all these facts and figures: we shall get them later. In the meantime the liquor man fights prohibition with all his might, at the same time shouting, “Prohibition does not prohibit.” Well - we know and he knows that no-license does hinder his sales, and we have every reason to believe that prohibition will prohibit, The King thinks the licensed house a bad thing—see Herald of Triesdav, page 7.—1 am, etc., G. H. M.