PEACE CONFERENCE AND COMMERCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13781, 10 March 1919, Page 6

PEACE CONFERENCE AND COMMERCE.

New Zealand's prospect of adequate indemnities from Germany is not overbright. Tho outlook is rather that the Dominion will have to recover lier position from within. That means the .stringent withdrawing of and re-in-vestment of, all moneys that can be made more productive. Gross expenditure on personal luxury thus becomes reprehensible, while the continued manufacture and sale of a, destructive commodity becomes literally both h personal and a national crime. New Zealand can no longer afford to waste iM.OO'I.OOO per annum on the ''•bodydestroying, soul-destroying,- , ' nation-de-stroying liquor traflie. It is admitted that the original waste involves a further loss of yet another £5,000,000 iv inetlicieiicy. Thus, prohibition would give us, immediately, for re-in vestment iv more productive: channels, :t 10,000,----001). 1 .">.(! per cent on this —which is tho average rate contributed to revenue from production in New Zealand— totals £1.5150.000. On the debit side the total loss through prohibition (including payment of interest and sinking fund on compensation, also lost revenue) would lie. at the outside, .L'l.-ViO,----000. This gives a clear-cut ga.in to the State of £;: 10,000 per year on ihc simple transaction itself. Add to that gain <.'.yen only ~>f> p<4 - cent of tlu , upkeep of charitable institutions, gaols, police, etc., and. we get a grand gain of i'i/lL'O.o.:;:": -It \s certainly worth while, and April lOth is the day you do il . Prohibition MI. T fc?T come.