LABOUR AND PROHIBITION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16906, 4 December 1922, Page 6

LABOUR AND PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOR.. Sir, —Your correspondents, “ Sane Labour” and “ Working Man, ’ plausibly attempt ito smoke-screen the views of the fellow-men. One complains that “ Labour candidates vote prohibition, and if prohibition is carried this election, the issue will throw out thousands of employed . - . without the remotest chance of re-engage-ment.” A mere blind man s bogey ! The reason why most Labour leaders are prohibitionists is because after many years of exhaustive study, they have resolved that prohibition, so far from causing unemployment, will provide better work for about five times the number of workers than liquormaking and selling now' employed. All the great trade union leaders of Great Britain, such as Mr Ramsay Macdonald, Mr Philip Snowden, and the Right Hon Arthur Henderson, have recognised this fact, and have said so. Twenty-five Labour leaders, including the above noted, and also Messrs T. Burt. G. N. Barnes, W. Crook© and D. J. Sliackleton, have signed the following manifesto :—“ Licensing reform would not cause unemployment. but help to remedy it. If any portion of our excessive Drink Bill were cut down as a result of legislation, there is a probability that the money thus saved would be diverted and spent in other industries, and in most other trades it would employ more labour and provide a greater share of remuneration to the workers.” Those leaders are earnest economic students and honest Labour advocates. Then why are nearly all the American Labour leaders out and out prohibitionists? Because the prohibition movement in the TT.S. A. has caused far more employment than the liquor trade ever provided, as witness the fact that most of the breweries and distilleries there have been convei*ted into better industrial uses employing from three to five times more workers and distributing far more money into general circulation. “Sane Labour” and “Working Man ” ought to study the Government Year Book in the industrial section and they will find therein how much greater employment and wages are given in other industries per capital and output as compared with the brewing trade. As a matter of fact, the liquor trade is nothing but a ruthless pirate on the ocean o.f industry.— I am, etc., WISER LABOUR.