A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT EXPOSED.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1281, 9 November 1911, Page 6

A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT EXPOSED.

DEATHS INCREASE UNDER PROHIBITION. ' HOW TO BEAD THE FIGURES. In this column samo days ago wero given some statistics issued -from tho United States Census Bureau showing, that the death-rate in prohibition States is-greater than the death rate in States under license. It was dlaimed, and it is atill claimed, that these figures were not "faked," that they were from "official unpurchaseable document's," and they were not invented to denounce- an opponent. It was also claimed that theso figures demonstrated that the statistics proved prohibition to be "a deadly death-dealing business" wherever tried. The reason assigned for this is that prohibition introduced tho sly grog-seller with.his bad liquor and indiscriminate drinking, and thereby induces a higher death-rate in prohibition States, and tho. figures prove this contention. Let us repeat some of these figures:— UNDER PROHIBITION. Death-rate Maine 2.16 Now Hampshire 2.18 Vermont 3.20 Average 2.85 UNDER LICENSE. Death-rate Alabama , UO Nebraska 1-50 Oregon ■ 1-21 Average 1-27 This shows that the death-rato under prohibition is fully double what it is under license; and tho causo is the sly grogseller with his bad' liquor and all the other evils that unlicensed drinking-shops breed. Now to apply there statistics to New Zealand, and to institute comparisons clearly it. is necessary to repeat the figures of the prohibition States:— . UNDER PROHIBITION. Death-rate Maine 2.100 New Hampshire 2.180 Vermont 3.200 Average 2.850 UNDER LICENSE. Death-rate Wellington 933 Christchurch 918 Auckland 1.1-5 Average ■... 1.003 This shows that the death-rate in the prohibition states with the sly grog-seller, his bad liquor and all the concomitant evils of no-licenso is nearly three times greater under prohibition than in the New Zealand cities under a clean, wellregulated and licensed trade. Taking the average, for every 100 deaths in the New Zealand cities under license there are 285 deaths under prohibition in the States mentioned, because of the iniquities that prohibition fosters and encourages. ' We may say that tho figures for New Zealand are to be. found oa Page 353 of the Official Year Book for 1910, and figures concerning the prohibition States referred to are from the United States Census Bureau, and ar/s based upon a percentage of each 100,000 of tho population. It was here that the prohibition critic dug a pit for himself and fell in. A lack of imagination will not save him. Let him plead "idiocy and mendacity," and ho may escape. Ho has deliberately and wilfully misrepresented the figures. Now, Maino has'seen the deadly deathdealing results of no-license and prohibition, and has decided to abrogate and annul the constitution so far as tho prohibition of tho sale and manufacture of liquor in that State is concerned. They have now made it possible to institute a clean licensing system. They determined to put an end to tho death-dealing business of prohibition with all its humbug, cant, and deception, all its sly grog-sell-ing and worse- evils, unmentionable in the columns of a clean newspaper, but which the prohibitionists of Maine fought tooth and nail to retain, and with them also hand in hand so fought the sly grog-seller and other workers of iniquity. Yet it is this cast-off, tattered rag of the State of Maine that tho prohibitionists and tho would-be sly grog-sellers are endeavouring to entangle about NewZealand. Wo cannot think that good and sane citizens in this Dominion will allow it. Wo believe they will strike out tho bottom lines on both ballot papers, and defeat" the intenlion of those who would foist prohibition with all its death-dealing iniquities upon a clean and respectable licensed country.' For Chronic Chest Complaints, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, u, Oa,"