STATE CONTROL OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 374, 18 August 1926, Page 9

STATE CONTROL OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

By Miss Jessie Mackey. (Concluded). In Australia State Control lias been confined to a few isolated districts and a handful of Government hotels. Early in this century the Government took over the liquor trade in Poit Darwin and the Northern Territory. The type of imputation in these regions would have given trouble under any system of control. Disgusting scenes of de bauchery were prevalent; money earned was Hung away on pay-day; scandal followed scandal, till at last the Federal Government intervened in 1519 with a commission of enquiry. !l was found .hat l’ort Darwin had put up a world record of liquor expenditure a head amid its small scattered population of 3,000. «tate Control was abolished in 1920. Kenmark, established .is ail irrigation settlement by the Chaffey brothers of Mildura, began as a No License ares. A public management scheme was adopted in 1897, on petition from residents. Government liquor has a strong hold on the district, in as much as sur plus profits are spent on public local objects. The hotel does good business, and makes no pietence of eliminating drunkenness. Very heavy drinking indeed is reported in the settlement, and wives and children of workers go short to feed State profits. Complaints from Kenmark are no novelty. Of various state hotels in Australia, those in Western Australia are most in the public eye. The Government seems disinclined to furnish the definite facts of the trade. Complaints commonly arise during the yearly debate on Estimates; insufficient accommodation in place has been admitted and private enterprise suggested to help out the deficiency. Commissions have elicited grave scandals as to mixture with inferior liquors and poisonous decoctions. Gwalia in Western Australia enjoys a unique reputation for Sunday Picnicking and Sunday drinking. The first manager at Gwalia took in good faith the order not to push liquor. Me was dismissed. The new manager handed in £2,537 for the fir.G year and £3.bo(» for the second. D«aths from drink have l*-en reported All evidence goes to show the Australian States, like the Canadian, are i»oor publicans, intent. like private dealers, on Imr trade, but cold on accommodation.

But wli> prolong the squalid record? State, Corporate, Municipal, Trust — whatever form of public control is named leads to the sane* results: increase in drinking, social degradation, and the corruption of public life and politics instead of the fresh, invigorating case of reform out foolish Moderates try to present; State Control is an old tallow candle, malodorously guttering out. From this sorry mess of evidence certain conclusions inevitably emerge. State Control at best throws a brief veil over ugly, ftmiluu facts. These facts soon obtrude again, since State Control rests upon two fallacies. The economic fallacy is that a business can be run by managers sworn to dis courage it and substitute some other and less lucrative business for it. The psychological fallacy is that selling what is dangerous and deleterious is only immoral when done by private persons, under State sale the thing become* safe and healthful. A bomb sold by a bishop still goes off, the lornb does not lose its character as a l*>mb, but the bishop loses his character as a bishop But more is at stake than the relations between buyer and seller. There are inter-social inter-political and international relations bound up in State Control that are not obvious In private liquor-trailing. State 00. trol vio.ently disrupts the relations between governors and governed, administrators of the law and sufferers of the law, even to that pitch where law practically dis appears. A trust breeds corruption like carrion in a town; a Liquor Ministry breeds corruption like carrion in a Government. Liquor revenue means political “pull” at all times; how much worse when the Government fauns 1 s own revenue? Economics r.r< entirely against State Control. The cost of enforcing Prohibition is great, but it works on a sliding scale; the first outlay is the worst, for it is killing the source of expense. Tho cost of enforcing State tVmtrol is greater, and the source of expense is »>eing fe<j till ultimate bankruptcy is the logical conclusion. Contrast America’s credible estimate —the normal life of ninety per cent, of law-abiding imputation —with the seething vice and liquorinduced crime of Quebec and British Columbia. There is no stability of institutions under State Control. In Russia the vodka monopoly took its huge part in the ill sowing for revolution. Anarchy waits for a country where the people

have no rasymet for their Government, and Government has no care for the* people. Very bitterly has Britain paid for Btale Control in India, among other errors. lastly, there emerges the inevitable “reductio ad absurdam. ’ State Control never controls. Liquor monopoly never monopolises. No Government or association is ever strong enough to stand up against the liquor pull from without. It has to buy its life by legalising private sales, as Sweden has done; or by collusion with illicit sellers, as Carolina did, and Canada is doing. Must we, then, return to private tlading as a way of peace? There is no w-arrant for that. Private control is not so much fairer than public control. During 40 centuries the trade has never reformed itself. Never has it been richer than now, never better organised, and never more bitterly denounced and despised. There is no place for either a public or a private liquor trade in this wonderful century of ours, w’hich is dreaming and doing for the kingdom amid the worst confusion ol poltiics, the rudest clang of armaments. ' , Who have laboured for that Kingdom of Righteousness more busily, more unitedly, more hopefully than d 1 e women of the White Ribbon? Much has fallen ls-fore us; much remains to be fought to a finish. Discouragements are many; the forces of evil are heavily entrenched, but they fail. The giand old hymn peals down the century: “By force of arms we nothing can; Full soon were we downridden; But for us fights the pro. er Man Whom God Himself haih bidden."