PROHIBITION IN CLUTHA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 664, 27 November 1902, Page 22

PROHIBITION IN CLUTHA.

As the above-mentioned district is being continually held up by prohibitionists as an example of the so-called benefits of prohibition, some interest attaches to the following portion of a speech which was delivered by Mr Quin, who was a candidate for Clutha seat at Clinton. He said that on the subject of prohibition he would not say much. Prohibition was the law of the land in this electorate, and was likely to remain so, and be earned elsewhere, too. There was. however, little doubt in* his mind shat it would have been much better had the prohibitionists declared for the whole colony instead of for one electorate, for a man like himself, constantly on the road throughout Clutha. saw the evils that had arisen through prohibition. It had closed the hotels, but in every corner the sale of grog would go on like the brook. The people would have, and would get, drink, and he could assure them that instead of sixteen licensed sellers of grog in the .Clutha nine years ago, there were now five times that number of unlicensed sellers. It was peddled by hawkers and sold by . butcher and baker boys in his district. Prohibition being on the Statute Book, the prohibitionists should endeavour. to stop this liquor traffic that has arisen since its enforcement. It was a disgrace that though in this electorate a glass of.liquor could not be purchased in a legitimate manner, the grog shops were swarming, with dissipation and drunkenness in every corner. He believed Clinton was the soberest town in the electorate ; he coul not say the same of Balclutba and Tapanui, and in certain parts of . the district the sly-grog trade was growing and becoming a perfect evil. Within the past week he had witnessed two scenes of drunkenness he would be ashamed to retail to his hearers. Again, these sly-grog shops sold poison in the shape of liquor—a growing evil he was anxious to stamp out-, as he was strongly desirous of stamping, out the bad class of grog shops existing in manv corners, of the electorate.”