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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17477, 23 January 1919, Page 5

the liberties of the people from the tyrannies of the prohibitionists on the one hand and the undue power of the liquor interests on the other, and also contended that the proper solution of the problem was State ownership. Dealing with the condition, of affairs in America, he strongly deprecated the introduction of corrupt American political systems into this country, and read extracts from magazine articles, written by prominent men, for the purpost of showing that immense organisation, of the prohibitionists in the United States threatened the rights and liberties of the people in other directions. He warned the men and women of this country that they were menaced by a similar danger. He condemned as unendurable the methods adopted to, secure the legislation adopted by the House, measures having been accepted by the Government because approved of by the leaders of the prohibition, and liquor parties and without reference to the rights or liberties of the people generally. He asserted that the Government had been responsible for the loss of many gallant lives through permitting the troopships to leave without adequate supplies of alcohol, and quoted medical authorities in support of his contention that enforced abstention from liquor led to the degrading drug habit. After dealing with other aspects of the question, he concluded by reading from an article by G. K. Chesterton, in which it was stated that the tendency of such a tyrannical movement as prohibition was to reduce the poor to slavery, to a slavery like that of the beasts and beasts were always teetotallers. No questions were asked, and, 01 [the motion of Dr. Hatherly, a voti lof thanks was accorded the speakers.