A Youth's Opinion on No- licence

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11730, 4 December 1905, Page 3

A Youth's Opinion on No- licence

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir —The No-license party are setting up a 'o-reat cry that No-licenae, if carried, would take temptation out of tho way ot youths, and prevent the moderate drmkin"' youth from becoming an habituu* drunkard. Now, sir, as one of the moderate drinking youths I say emphatically (leaving the sly-grog question severely alone) that such would .not bo the case, for I know that dozens, if not hundreds, of youths like myself will, in the event of No-license obtaining, band together into small "clubs 1 for the purpose of obtaining drink. The scheme is a simple one °Say I form or join one- of these clubs which will include, besides myself, Jones, Smith, Brown, Green, and Robinson. It will be arranged that I "shout two gallons of beer one weeK, .Tones two crallons the next, and so on. This is all very well, and two gallons a week between six youths is moderate drinking, but the question is— will we always limit ourselves to two gallons per week? Tine amount of beer costs only , whereas at the present time we ea6h spend on an average, say, 2s 6d per week over tho bars- 15s per week between six of us. Now, this liquor will be free of access to all of us. It will not be a matter of paying for it glass by glass as at present, and will not this very freedom- tempt us to finish tho two gallons in one night and say: "Oh, well, it used to cost us ]5s a week for drinks, and that lot only cost • let us invest; tne balance of the 15s in some more." That, sir, I contend, is what it will lead to, and even worse, for these beer clubs will naturally lead to gambling. We cannot sit all night drinking beer, and to pass the time between drinks we will play cards — perhaps to decide who sliatt shout the next stock of liquid, perhaps not. Is this taking away ! temptation? All this, sir, is not— as our ! No-license friends will probably say— the

weird imaginings of an excited and youth-ful-mind.. .L-pieasugiuliy-to the, "youthful," but tlie rest is purely the ultimate outcome of what I kn«w would happca in the event of No-license being carried— i.e., the establishment of these clubs. I may have painted the -picture in its Worst colours, but it would take only a few months of No-license for my colour scheme •to be realised, and for that reason I, with many of my friends who wish to remain moderates — not in preference to being total abstainers, but in preference to becoming habitual drunkards — am voting for •continuance. And I ask any moderate ; drinking youth who thinks of voting Nolicense to consider this before doing so: . "Is it better to have an occasional drink' in a legitimate way over a bar- (and thereby be restricted to an occasional) or to have unlimited drink at home in your 'bedrooms? Under which system are you likely to remain moderates?" — I am; sir, YOUNG VOTER.