AN ECHO OF THE POLL.

White Ribbon, Volume 41, Issue 487, 18 April 1936, Page 6

AN ECHO OF THE POLL.

“’Tin Im* 11 e r to have tried and Tailed than never to have tiled at all." An earnest White Ribboner, the Treasurer of our Richmond W.C.T.I'., sent the following lettei to the Nelson Mail In answer to the false statements of the Liquor I’arty. But it never appeared heeause "advertisements can only he answered as advei tiseiiu nts." Afterwards the writer interviewed the Editor and told him would gladly have paid £5 for tin inseition of the letter. Slu* thinks n-xt time she will fare letter sinee she understands their regulation. Sea View, Richmond. 11/7/35. Mr. Editor, — 1 think your inset of the 15th October has not yet !>een answered, namely. Would you like to pay more taxes? Most folk will answer, No, certainly not. This vital question of profit and loss, considered in connection with the Liquor Traffic, has been discussed at every election poll since a vote has Ireen taken on the prohibition question, and Customs, Excise duties, voluntary (?) contributed revenue, has lieen dangled like a red rag in the face of electors, (ilance at the other side, take N.Z.’s estimated drink bill, 11*29 to 1934, of £37,597,281, or £7,519,231 every year. What a vast sum! wasted, and, was not much of it blood-money? Yes, worse than wasted. We understand that £IOO worth of l»eer costs £13.1H in wages; this sum spent in furniture is said to cost £39.4 in wages, while the same amount expended on food, footwear. ( lothum or woollens would give a much larger percentage in wages than beer, and would bring joy and plenty to homes now cursed by alcoholism. For 50 years I have watched this great fight and I know that lost manhood, desecrated womanhood and sickly, neglected children follow in the trail of the liquor traffic. Talk about hopeless enforcement! How much does the traffic In strong drink cost? Enquire in the home of the drunkard s children, question our sportsmen, our athletes, consult our best and most skilful doctors. Have the profits arising from the Trade compensated for the evil it creates? How much does alcoholism cost? Visit our inebriate homes, our police and law courts, our orphanages—numbers nre there whose fathers never owned them; count the numlter of our lroarded-out children, consider our mental schools, our hospitals and asylums, then ask again, How much it costs? —for much of this trouble comes of the drink traffic. As to America's greatest mistake. America may yet find that repeal has »>een her greatest mistake; it was not prohibition that incteased drunkenness and crime, but the lack of it; not the eighteenth amendment, but the failure to enforce the amendment.

(’on tin nance has a lot of sv input by for American women! Pathetic, no doubt, but Americans do not all think alike. The fight is on! One defeat will not decide this battle; already the brewers craft, the traffic in alcoholic liquor, is in danger, and some time, some day, light will In* enthroned. The one wise thought with which J agtee, "In the Lesson for New Zealand," is, histoiy has proved that no law can l>e enforced in an> country without the will behind it of a large majority of the people, Quite true. So ye wise of the nation Ik; up and doing, teach the youth of New Zealand the evil of alcoholism and its traffic. l)o you want to pay more taxes? While the traffic pockets its millions, while alcoholism claims for its victims men, women and children, we shall have more orphans, more mental cases, more accidents, poveity, degradation and crime, and vve shall have to pay more taxes. Electors! Christians! Don’t use horse sense, list* your intelligence, your commonsense. Vote for (lod, Home and Humanity, and strike out the two ton lines. I am, SARAH J. CROPP.