THE PROHIBITION FARCE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 704, 3 September 1903, Page 20

THE PROHIBITION FARCE.

Cooi<-HBADED men, who are accustomed to connect effort with object, must often pause to wonder what it is that the prohibition party really want. bo far, the result of the no-license propoganda seems to have been nothing more than the infliction of hardship, loss, and in several classes ruin upon the ic n.ed victualler class. No one supposes that there has been any achievement in the shape of “reformation,” or that the ■consumption of liquor has hp< n diminished. There is a difference it is true, but tnis affects the kind more than the degree of drinking, and it may be affirmed unhesitatingly that it is for the worse. The horrors which we have been accustomed to associate with the King Country alone are surely spreading into those other districts where local option has opened wide the way. The hotels have been closed but a few weeks, and •already in these districts, Mataura., Ashburton, etc., the police have accumulated a crop of sly grog prosecutions that bids fair to'occupy the Courts for weeks on end. The number of “ cases ” represent probably only a small proportion of the actual instances in which the law has been broken, and each piosecution will serve only to make the sly grog-sellers more expert and more cunning After years of fatuousjdabbling with the matter on the part of the authorities, it is certain that more grog is sold in the King Country to-day than at any time previously. Mr Northcroft has lately adopted a new method of dealing with offenders that come before him He banishes ” them ; but he will have to banish ” half the population before he touches the root of the matter, and the chances are that he would fail egregiously even then. And what is done in the King Country is possible in Mataura, where also there must be greater obstacles in the way of the police and a finer spirit of camaraderie amongst the people. In the prohibited districts of the South liquor may be freely obtained wholesale from outside, and it is ridiculous to suppose that under such conditions the amount of drink consumed will be reduced, or that opportunities for disposing of it in small quantities will be wanting There is an astute native in the King Country who does a larger trade in grog than any other individual, and he has never been, nor is likely to -be, caught, for a very simple reason. He never serves two people at one time. But to return, if, seeing that under local option the “ evils ” of drink are likely to be increased rather than diminished what is the object of the prohibitionists ? The Premier has offered to carry out their presumed policy to its logical conclusion, to make the possession of, liquor in prohibited districts a criminal offence, but they won’t have it ; they are also offered national option, but they will not accept it. What is their object then ? Is it simply to harry the publicans? I hat is really what it looks like, though why they should want to do this is not -clear. The fact of the matter seems to be that there is a class of people who must make a show of righteousness or .go mad, and as the hotel is the outward and visible sign of an alleged offence they want to close it. Nothing, as we have before pointed out, is considered evil by these people so long as it is kept out of sight.