WOMEN WITH COMMON SENSE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 693, 18 June 1903, Page 20

WOMEN WITH COMMON SENSE.

The women of this Colony are not all content to accept as truth al; that comes from the mouth of the prohibition parson and stump orator. It will be remembered that when the Premier visited Kawhia the other day, a deputation representing the women residens in that part of the King Country, waited upon him in connection with the sly-grog horror. They pointed out that the illicit traffic could only be effectually eradicated by the introduction of a properly controlled trade, and expressed a desire that the State should undertake She business. About the details of,the •abject we need not worry, but the fact

is clear that these good women, like all honest persons of both sexes, recognise the evils of the shebeen system, and also the impossibility of putting it down by T the police. But the W.C.T.U., those saints without logic, were shocked, and at once wrote an affectionately reproving epistle to their Laodicean sisters at Kawhia, begging them to have nothing to do with the dreadful drink in any shape or form, but to keep sound in the prohibition goose. To this letter a reply has been sent, much more courteous in tone than the W.C. Temperance persons had any right to expect, but sufficiently crushing nevertheless. The writer is Mrs D’Arcy Hamilton, wife of the native schoolmaster, the lady who had the courage to propose the health of Mr Lang, M.H.R.I at the Premier.s banquet. She says :—“ As spokeswoman of the deputation that interviewed the Premier concerning the sale of sly.grog at Kawhia, I have been asked by them to reply to your letter on the subject. If you do not already know, Kawhia and the King Country generally are, and have been for 15 or 16 uears, virtuallyprohibited districts, and surely that time is sufficient to prove the success or failure of the existing law. As time goes on and this place—because we refer more to Kawhia —becomes more thicklypopulated, the existing state of affairs certainly appeals to us residents as anything but a success, and instead of prohibition obtaining as the increased demand for liquor goes on, the increase of supply becomes greater. The idea of controlling the natural desires of a depraved humanity by Act of Parliament seems to us an impossibility, at any rate in a satisfactory manner. Extreme prohibitionists are inclined to be rabid, and we think a- medium course is better. Extr?me measures are seldom advisabl? in any department. If prohibition could be general throughout the whole of New Zealand it might be possible for the law to be enforced in the King Country, ami we should be with you with all our hearts;; but where licenses are granted freely ' in adjoining districts it is worse than useless. The British mind resents such nice distinctions.” But Mrs Hamilton is only a woman after all and a little optimistic, and allows her fancy to> run away with her. The publichouse once obtained, she thinks it would instantly banish the slygrog fiend, just as St. Patrick put all the reptiles in Ireland to rout, and that thereafter the institution could be run on ideal lines.

“ We considered,” she proceeds, “ that a State-controlled house, where the person managing it would be a salaried servant of the Government, like a postmaster, a teacher, or a policeman is, and would have absolutely 7 no interest in whether he sold *a thimbleful or a hogshead, and would have nothing to gain, but much to lose by encouraging the unfortunates who require drink to take more than was good for them—a house where men would not be supplied with comfortable rooms kept open till late hours to keep them from their homes, but an open bar, where all on the street might see them ; where no liquor could be obtained except by stamps procured, say, from the local post office ; where the person managing could supply temperance refreshments at reasonable prices, and thus increase his salary, making the temptation to use strong drink less. We consider that Kawhia is a most suitable place to try such an experiment, and under a steady, reliable person we consider it would be a success.”

To which we beg to say, and we know, something about the subject, that the King Country is not populated by angels, and that if the residents, natives or European, have to apply to the local postmaster for permission to get a drink, they will prefer the method now in vogue. What is wanted in the King Country, and what will be there some of these days, is hotels amenable to the ordinary provisions of the law. There is no other way to stop the illegal traffic. As to the whining about our want of faith with the natives, to whom we promised that no grog should be permitted to enter their sacred territory, Mrs Hamilton has some enlightened remarks to make. She says “ With regard to breaking faith with a semicivilised race, we may say that at present the semi-civilised persons are very prominent among the law-breakers, And make too good a living by this illicit

trade to favour a hotel of any sort or under any control. It was said at a meeting the other day that if a petition against prohibition and one for were taken round the natives for signature the bulk of them would sign both. The majority of them have little or no mind on the subject, and, with the exception of a few old Maoris who are grieved to see the younger ones abusing drink, the average Maori has no choice, whether his liquor is licit or illicit, so long as he gets it.” Moreover, if would be just as sensible to oppose a change of treatment in the case of a person first suspected of typhoid, but afterwards found to be suffering from a broken leg, as it is to maintain in the face of facts, that the police, and the informer, and the gaol can prevent fhe Maori from killing himself by the consumption of bad liquor. We do not share the hope expressed in the concluding paragraph of Mrs Hamilton’s letter that the W.C. 'Temperance folk may “ relinquish their extreme measures to use their influence to rectif, a most abasing evi‘,” but we have every confidence in the ultimate victory of good sense in the minds of the people at large.