Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY] THURSDAY, 'MAY 7, 1891.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 7407, 7 May 1891, Page 2

Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY] THURSDAY, 'MAY 7, 1891.

TSE TEMPERANCE QUESTION

« In another column we publish » long letter from Mr Bassett in reply to a late article ia these columns on the subject of Confiscation v. Compensation. Talcing Mr Bassett's figures, and looking at them from a common sense point of view, it will be found that instead of 160,000 people spending two millions per annum in wines, spirits, and beer in this colony, that at least half as many more should be reckoned as non-abstainerß. Mr Bassett, to give weight to his argument, assumes that only a certain percentage of the adult male population of the colony consume alcoholic beverages, and that the whole of the adult female population are total abstainers ! If he estimated the number of people who are not abstainers at 250,000 lie would still be well within the mart, and if he worked out the sum he would find that their individual average expenditure on liquor amounted to no more than about five pence per diem. This is proof positive of our statement, which Mr Bassett takes exception to, viz., that the people of New Zealand do not drink to excess — statistics prove that they are the soberest people under the British flag, Mr Bassett and his friends to the contrary notwithstanding. Surely a British, subject has the right to eat and drink what he or she chooses ? Are we to accept from the Prohibitionists a dietary scale, and be coorced into a strict adherence thereto ? Surely not. Mr Bassett claims by inference that a majority of the people of New Zealand are in favor of Prohibition, his own figures, even as understated as we have shown them to be, clearly prove the contrary. The licensing elections lately won by the Prohibitionists merely go to prove that less than a tithe of the residents in the Boroughs in question are in favor of Confiscation and Coercion. Mr Bassett argues against himself with considerable force when he states that whilst the law only insists on a licensed house having sixrooms, exclusive of billiard and those required by the family of the licensee, the latter in most cases — he might with perfect truth, say in all — either erects or has erected for him buildings containing much more public accommodation than the law requires. This is proof positive to any unbiased mind that the hotels of the colony are not mere " drink shops," as the Prohibitionists unjustly term them, and that the public require the accommodation, and have a legal right to some of it. Mr Bassett cites certain American States and cities in favor of Prohibition, and wo will cite the following from a late English paper,one of whose contributors says: " I am interested in learning that during 1890 there were 2,300 imprisonments for drunkenness, and 192 for selling liquor in the State of Maine. This is one of the States where the law of Prohibition is enforced, and looking at the foregoing statistics, one can hardly congratulate the Yankees on having obtained satisfactory results through the introduction of then 1 anti-drink ukase to the people of Maine. Very little is known in England regarding the law of Prohibition as enacted in the States, but it is a specimen of .legisla-

lion well worthy of the land that has produced the wooden nutmeg. Personally, I have seen a good deal of the working oi this law, aa I was in the State of Kansas some years ago when it was first enforced — I mean so far as this particular part of the couutry was concerned. Briefly then I may explain that all the saloons in the State were closed, and the only people permitted to sell intoxicating liquors were the druggists, who were allowed to supply them solely for medicinal and mechanical purposes — the latter referring to spirit used in mixing paints. I need scarcely inform my intelligent readers that, with the arrival of the new law, vast numbers of men found it necessary to obtain stimulants for the benefit of their health, though, if appearances went for anything, it was hard to see what ailed them. Instead of stopping the drink traffic, prohibition rather gave it a fillip, and consequently there was a boom in alcohol. Of course, there was no ! difficulty in being served with drink, for the druggists— good judges too — did not ask any questions, and consequently tho " patient " was, as a rule, loft to make his own diagnosis and prescribe just what he pleased. In fact, tho anti-drink mandate merely transferred the liquor tmsiness from the saloon mon to the druggists, but the prices were raised, and many a .'Kansas " pillmongcr " has made his pile through the action of a few shrieking temperance cranks. That is Prohibition in a nutshell." In another column we reprint a very sensible article on the licensing question from the columns of the Wellington Post, which we commend to the perusal of Mr Bassett and his friends, who we feel sure mean well, but entirely mistake the proper course they should take to abate drunkenness, with which crime they seek to brand everyone who refuses to subscribe to their belief, that all alcholic beverages are but another name for the " seven deadly sins," and that those who indulge in them should be compelled by law to cease to do so and become teetotallers. Mr Bassett' arguments against Compensation and in favour of Confiscation are as weak and untenable as those wo have controvorted, and clearly show how for he and his friends aro prepared to mis-state the case of their opponents in order to carry their own point. The people of the colony will not agree to bo coerced into total abstinence, and will, if tho Prohibitionists attempt to shut up all the hotels in any licensing district call upon their representative in Parliament to amend the law so that the Temperance party cannot interfere with those who refuse to give up what they deem a necessary article of consumption — or allow that party to confiscate the property of those who cater for the wants of the public.