NO-LICENSE MEETING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1300, 1 December 1911, Page 10

NO-LICENSE MEETING.

SPEECH BY BEV. KNOWLES SMITH. An address in the interests of prohibition was given at the Concert Chamhor of the Town Hall last evening by the I'ev. 0. Knnwlos Smith, Mr. J. Kevslako. presiding.-: The subioct was "Five Million Pounds,, and After," the speaker balancing the five millions of money accruing from the sale of licinnr in this country against the effects which, he stated, were produced by its consumption. He went on to say that prohibition was "the overwhelming question of the day" among the people of the Dominion. If it were not solved at this election, then the choice of candidates at the next would bo made a special point of. The fundamental principle underlvin? all economic questions was that the prosperity of a nation depended upon the wise investment of the wealth which that nation produced, and this wise investment had reference to the happiness, educational facilities, physical well-being, and virility of the community nt large. If this five millions did not benefit the nation, and add to its happiness, wealth, and morality, then it was'the right and duty of the'people to prohihit.tho sale of liouor, which brought in this sum. He did not recognise, individual liberty in any matters which affected tho well-being of the community, and, where so many suffered, then it was the right and duty- of the community to limit that individual liberty. Nothing was trained b'v the individual as a drinker. Drink, said the sneaker, was detrimental oven to ' the moderate man, and, to.the habitual drunkard, it bronchi degradation and miserv. and broken liparl? to their wives. Tn New Zealand he. had been struck by the large amount of drinkin<: by 'young men. He had seen more of that than he had ever seen in (he sixteen years that he had spent workill", in Ike slums of Kn'rland. Ttefi'.ri'nce was made, by the speaker to an advertisement which had 'appeared in | (he papers yesterday. \ column l:iul ! been devoted to-an article of Professor \ Pearson, a member of the National j Eugenics .Society, England, upon alcohol j and .its relation fothe children of alcoholic parents, in which the professor .stated that "the. balance turned as often as not in favour of the alcoholic as of the nonalcoholic parentage:" As a member of (hat•' Eugenics Society (the only member, he thou'.'hi, in New Zealand': Mr. Smith stated that, the professor had made some grievous errors, having left out. (he hereditary influences of the grandparents and 'ireat-grandparents on both sides of the family. Ho had since acknowledged his errors, the society had withdrawn the article, and Professor. Pearson had sub=c- I qucntly dissodftted himself from his erroneous coatlusiou*.