WHAT NO-LICENSE PRODUCES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1259, 14 October 1911, Page 6

WHAT NO-LICENSE PRODUCES.

MORE DRINKING AND SLY GROG SHOPS.

NEW ZEALAND'S RECORD.

CONSUMPTION OF LIQUOR. Value of Number of No- Consumption Tear. License areas. per head. 1900 1 8 0 1905 3 3 8 2 1909 _ 12 3 11 0 1910 12 " 3 13 1 The Rev. Gibson Smith said seventeen years ago that "alcohol is not a poison; if it were there would be no sacrifice in abstaining from it"; and so the people have kept on consiiiding it in increasing quantities. No-License is No Reform. Prohibitionists affirm as a truth—one )f their truths, of course—that as their ;ause spreads the consumption of liquor irill decrease. The honest truth and tho facts tell quite a different story. Hero ire the figures:— Consumption Gallons. per head Tear. Beer made, in gallons. 1900 6,811,280 9.150 1903 7,555,200 9.460 1907 9,019,600 10.150 1910 9,399,140 13,100 Again, the Rev. Gibson Smith says (see Dosroaox, October 6, 1911): "I still bcieve No-License, even if entirely triimphant, vrill not bring in the millenlium, nor even furnish a permanent ottleniont of tho liquor problem." Is it iot time those Prohibitionists got a move n to bring in tho millennium, and fnrlish something that would be a permannt settlement? Why, then, bo deluded by these Prolibitionists, who tell us that Prohibition nd No-Licen.°e will save the country and ho poople from every form of evil intjuity and extravagance? It is all fusian. No-License, with all its progress, has ot even reduced tho amount of drinking nd on that score alone is a failure. No-Lieonso only drives drinking in lrgeT quantities into sly grog-shops in aTea-s. In face of those facts there is surely no pcessity for the language and altitude f tho No-License advocates towards tho resent licensing system.*