AUSTRIAN WINE

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2208, 22 July 1914, Page 8

AUSTRIAN WINE

SHOPS ON, THE GUMFIELDS "GREAT IMMORALITY" Wine shops oil tlio Kauri Gum Reserves are condemned by the Gum Lands Commission in its report, which makes the following reference to the subject:— "Your Commissioners feel that they would be failing in their duty, to the State-if they neglected to draw attention v to the pernicious effects of the wine-shops established on several of the kauri-gum reserves on the northern gumfields. From- Kaitaia northwards everywhere the same tale was told. HeplutaJjle residents of tire districts affected waited upon your Commissioners at each centre visited. The ovi'denco of one witness, a Justice of the I'eace, who is a man' of high standing and repute, in referring to this matter, said that the wine-shops existing in different parts of the various gumfields should not be allowed to continue in any shape or form, and that they were conducive to great immorality. He further stated that lie lias known cases where the kauri-gum was bartered for wine. The usual experience was that as soon as a- gumfield was opened the wine-shops fo!ro~ed.. "In the opinion of your Commissioners the traffic is having a most 'harmful effect in the districts mentioned, and is doing a great injury to a largo number of the Maori people, wlrolo families of whom for many months of the year camp on the fields an dengage in gum-digging:" I _