NO-LICENSE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3036, 5 November 1908, Page 5

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 the prohibition movement in New Zealand may be judged from the following extract from the London "Times" of February 11th, 1907:—"Looking from the point of view of the highest interests of the colony, at the actual results of local option regime in New Zealand, we clearly see that against any real advantages which can be not merely claimed but sustained by the prohibitionists there are some very serious drawbacks. Assuming for the sake of argument that there may have been a decrease in the amount of drunkenness we have to put against such decrease (1) the intense bitterness of the feeling which the local option propaganda has spread throughout the colony, dividing it into mto great hostile camps, and setting neighbour against neighbour; (2) the disadvantages of local option laws which fail to appeal to the mural sense of the community, excite animosity rather than secure support, and can be carried out, even in part, only by the organisation of a spy system which brings the administration of justice into contempt with all honest and honourable men; (3) the inexcusable interference with personal liberty; (4) the sense of injustice inflicted on working class and middle class people by depriving them of the opportunity of getting reasonable refreshment when they want it, while the well-to-do citizen can s f ore as much liquor as he pleases in his cellars; and (5) the effect which the whole controversy has in diverting the attention of the electorate from the real problems, colonial, or Imperial, a general electon should involve, and concentrating it, rather, iipon side issues which ihad much better be left to the conscience and the practical common sense of the people. *