THE ELIMINATION OF PROFIT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 167, 9 April 1919, Page 8

THE ELIMINATION OF PROFIT

1 (To tho Editor.) Sir—ln vour leading article of\this morning you suggest that tho elimination, of' privato profit under State control of the liquor traffic would cure tho ovils that now attend the sale of liquor. That this is quito a mistaken idea can bo easily shown from our own experience in numerous instances throughout the Dominion. I refer to the'case of chartered clubs, in which no "private profit" is mado'or even allowed. The result, nevertheless, is most disappointing. Not a few business men in our cities have gone under through the drinking (facilities at 'the various clubs. One club Was proved to be so badly conducted that the authorities wero compelled 'to cancel its charter—a fato that many of its fellows equally deserved. No, Mr. Editor, the elimination of private profit is not any cure for the evils of tho liquor, trade. /I'lio only systoin that has ever succeeded is the suppression of all sides for'beverage purposes. Kansas, in tho United States, has had prohibition i'or 37 years; its population is over one million and threequarters. Some of its young people have never seen a drunken man, and in 1916 it paid off tho last instalment of its State debt. No system of liquor sales could produce such marvellous results as these.—l am, qto., READER.' [Our correspondent is mistaken in attributing'to us tho" (ontention that the elimination of profit from tho salo of liquor would '.'cure" tho evils of tho drink traffic. What we did say was that those who would, reform the trade rather than abolish it argued that "one of the greatest, if not tho chief, of the causes of the evils arising out of the liquor trade is to be found in the fact that tho salo of liquor is carried on merely as a profit-making business, and in consequence every possible temptation is put forward to draw custom and to encourage drinking." We did express the opinion that there was ranch to be said in support of this view. The evils of the trade would bo "lessened," not "cured," by (lie eliminalion of profit.].