EFFICIENCY AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3174, 27 August 1917, Page 6

EFFICIENCY AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

Sir,—A great deal of time .is being spent inside and outsido of Parliament over financing the cost of tho war. I often wonder our politicians are so dense (or is it cowardice?) as not to see the great financial asset to l>e secured by abolishing the liquor traffic, root and branch, with its colossal waste to tho State. If this onoriuous waste and its inseparable evils were stopped, New Zealand would soon be progressing by leaps and bounds. The Eflicieucy Hoard, composed of keen business men, was so con* vinced by abundant and incontrovertible evidence that it was compelled to endorse this view, and accordingly urged the Government in its report to give tho peoplo a chance of ending the liquor burden under which New Zealand is now staggering. The Efficiency Board recommended this course even at the cost of somo compensation to tho liquor dealers, feeling sure the country vrould very quickly recoup the outlay by the greatly increased economic saving that would inevitably and speedily follow. A good while back in different issues of The Dominion you kindly allowed me to point out that a well-known firm of solicitors, in inviting lenders for a parcel of fivo thousand brewery shares belonging to a deceased person's estate, assured the sharebrpkers and other applicants that the profit in dividends and bonuses was twenty per cent., equal to .£IOOO on tho total' shares. At the same time I also pointed out the striking fact that ono shareholder alone held over 40,000 shares, which yielded him. .£'Booo a But now a still more glaring case, proving how tho ready cash is mopped up by these brewery concerns, has just come before me. Another public man in a still larger brewery holds in his own name 113,000 shares, and assuming that he seta tho same ratio of profit as tlio smaller brewery pays—and the assumption is perfectly reasonable—his yearly income on this lot of shares alone (for he is interested in others) is .£22,G00, or .£2 lis. for every hour in the twenty-four, Sundays and holidays included. Talk about the dreams of avarice, they are nothing to the realities of beer! Tho late T.'E. Taylor said, and said truly, that tho "brewing monopoly kept Labour and labour interests in subjection." That this is so must lie self-evident, because a gigantic monopoly devoted to the destruction of wealth and earning power can do no other than impoverish the State, while : enriching the few. Goldsmith aptly said: . 11l fares tho land, to hastening ills ft prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Oh, for a statesman to arise and lead tho peoplo in this their hour of need! Let us hopo our present necessity mil produce the man.—l urn, etc., . REASON. P.S.—Tho number of shares are copied from tho registarefl share lists open to anyone who cares to inspect them. —R.