Dear Sir,

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 35, 9 October 1946, Page 4

Dear Sir,

IS THIS JUSTICE?

Six’, —In your Friday’s issue is the report of the police prosecutions ai’ising from the supply of liquor to natives. It is gratifying to know that steps are being taken to protect our Maoi’is from this menace to the race, and that some offenders have been brought to account. But m l’eading the report one is forcibly struck by a strange anomaly, which perhaps you can explain? One man was charged and fined for introducing liquor to a pah and with supplying a Maoi'i. The Maori v/as charged and fined for assisting . in supplying himself. Another man was fined for removing liquor from the Whakatane Hotel after hours. Now, was his the only illegal act? Must he not have been supplied illegally? Or-, did he steal the liquor? If, as appears obvious, he was supplied, then why was not the publican charged with his share of this offence and dealt with accordingly? It appears a clear case, with the Whakatane Hotel named by the police! Our other hotel, the Commercial, was also named; if those found on these premises after hours were worthy of a fine, then in the name of justice, should not the publican who allowed them to be there also have shared in the charges and fines. Why should he get away with' it? The publicans would seem to be more responsible than their victims,’

as without their co-operation there could be no such offences. Can we imagine that they are ignorant of the conditions under which their' licenses are gi'anted? Do not such cases make it only too evident that they are not carrying out their obligations to the State, or to the Whakatane townsfolk? Now Sir, I ask ■ you, am I labouring under a mis- : apprehension? And why, to the uninitiated, does the law appear not ' to operate in these cases? Yours etc., - INTEGRITY. '

“THE MODERATE DRINKER”

Sir, —In this enlightened twentieth century we are apt to boast of our intelligance and to think we are quite competent to take care of ourselves and that we know just what is best for our physical and mental development. Possibly we have reason to conclude that we have made wonderful progress in those last days, for it is true that bur immediate ancestors did not possess such things as radios, aeroplanes and a hundred and one things which are now common to man and which are considered essential for modern civilised life.

Yes, we have learned t@ talk audibly with our friends on the : other side of the planet, and to flash pictures of the event occurring all over the world by wireless arid print them in our daily papers. We have learned to fly from England to New Zealand in a few hours. We most assuredly do marvellous things these days of which our grandfathers in their wildest immaginings never drempt.

But with our learning we still seem to regard alcoholic drinks, as essential food, products, and to classify the manufacture of beer as an essential industry. What, colossal ignorance!

II it could be shown scientifically that beer was a valuable commodity required for the maintenance of health and strength then we might be disposed to say but little against its manufacture and distribution, but when modern science has proved beer to be of little or no value whatever for the maintenance of health and strength and when it can be shown that the nation spends many millions of money for satisfying its abnormal craving for a poisonous liquid which contributes to accident, reduces efficiency, corrupts the morale of a nation shortens the average span of life, then it is time to think again. Regular readers of the N.Z. Herald might have noticed and read some three or four weeks ago that quite a number of people made suggestions to the Commissioner . controlling the liquor traffic with, a strong recommendation. These are some of the suggestions:—

Tearooms to be permitted to serve beer and wine while having meals. The extension of time for trading to urge moderation in drinking etc. This is a crafty policy indeed and one which should tend to increase the sale of drinks, for so .long as men can be induced to drink in moderation the supply of drunkards is inevitably assured for every unfortunate drunkard was once a “moderate drinker” who probably determined to remain throughout his life a “moderate drinker,” for no man of ordinary intelligence would ever

set out with the deliberate intention of becoming a drunkard. Exp erts who. have devoted most attention to the subject regard alcohol as certainly one of the conti’ibutive factors in that deterioration of brain tissue which lies at the real root of mental inability and the feeblemindedness of many human beings. • Youi’s etc., C. R. PERENARA, (Member of the Majatua Social and Economic Advancement Committee).

SOCIALISM Sir, —In the Beacon of October2nd “Democrat” replies to my last letter and begins by dismissing the Bishop of Bradford because he ‘is obviously a Socialist” and “has no qualification to speak on economic systems.” Apparently the Observer Democrat Citizen etc. is quite' sure ’ of his own qualifications in this direction by his parrot-lrke repetition of warnings against Socialism and planning to protect the people. Must we boost the profiteers to be an economist? Anyway the Bishop is *a courageous Chi’istian who is not 1 afraid to denounce obvious injustice and sign his name to his denunciation. '

As to that Liberalism brought on the free competitive system in 1840: to begin with the free competitive system probably existed in the stone age, when, if you could sneak up behind a man whose possessions you coveted you could eliminate him promptly without danger of being' tried in court for murder. Ever since then the dice have been loaded in favour of the haves and to the disadvantage of the have nots. Governments and rulers have never “sought to plan !the common good,” they have always sought to plan the good of the wealthy minorities that put them there. Socialists believe in appointing a government that will plan for the great majority. As to

this golden age of Liberalism that is supposed to have begun in 1840, it was not so bad for the favoured few who hold the gold. In Morton’s “History of England” page 403 is the following: “By the autumn of 1863 nearly 60 per cent, of the textile workers were unemployed. Wages fell to four and fiye shillings per week.” Gladstone said in the House of Commons: “It is one of the most melancholy features in the social- state of this country that we see, beyond the possibility of denial, that while there is at this moment a decrease in the consuming powers of the people, an increase of the pressure of privation and distress; there is at the same time a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, an increase of the luxuriousness of their habits and of their means of enjoyment.” In recent years Sir John Boyd Orr showed in the official report of his investigations that thirteen and a half million people * in England could not earn enough to buy sufficient food to avoid malnutrition. At the same time the sale of Rolls Royce cars

went up,

In the preface to “The "future of the Colonies” .by Professor Julian Huxley is the following: “No one will tolerate a return to the unplan- , ned chaos of the inter-war years; the chaos of slump and slum, of. malnutrition and mass unemployment. A plan is demanded.” As to so-called “democracy” only preparing for war when threatened, how did the Boer farmers threaten Great Britain in 1899, and what about Rule Brittania and the British Navy,stionger than any combinations of other Navies, up till 1914; and just now the richest “democracy” with. ' the most powerful army and navy in the world piling up atomic bombs at £50,000,000 each. Very profitable to munition manufacturers and profiteers no doubt. By the way the' Biitish public showed., their opinion of Liberals and Imperialism at the last election. '' . Yours etc., C. J. HALLETT. v