PROHIBITION.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 342, 18 June 1894, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

TO THK EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sin, — Prohibitionists are now very busy advertising themselves on the cheap, trying to embarrass the Government, and pestering people with their Prohibition Petition. I think that before asking us to sign the latter, they should prepare a taxation scheme to take the place of tho Alcoholic Liquors Tax, if the sale of liquors is prohibited ; and not ask us to take a leap in tho dark. The amount of public revenue derived from liquors is nearly twice as great as that from the Land Tax ; and if a tax be imposed upon land to take the place of the Liquor Tax, and be based as the present Land Tax is, then it follows that if I now pay £10 per year of Land Tax, under this new system of taxation I should have an additional £20 per year to pay[to square the deficit. With this and other burdens laid on us, I should begin to ask tho question, Is it possible for farmers to live in New Zealand and pay their way ? It will not do to reply, as some do, that Prohibition would not increase our taxation, for we will spend nioney, as we should do, on pleasure, — for life without pleasure is an evil device, and money may bo spent on pleasures which would be difficult to tax. Teetotallers must now be speudiug their money "on trifles light as air " for they do not get on any better than others do. Prohibitionists may mean well, but they should not try to gain a victory on false pretences, as I think they often do. Iv their public addresses they generally insinuate that if Prohibition was carried all over the colony, our prisons, hospitals, and asylums, would soon almost bj emptied of inmates, and we should require very few policemen, which talk is a very thin piece of rot. Judging from what is now happening in Carolina, we should require not less, but more of them than wo now do. Again, they suggest that in some mysterious way Government cotild annex our liquor money if Prohibition took place, which statcnieut is a very stout piece of rot. The " Tree of Prohibition " may, like its namesake of old, bo a very fruitful tree, at any rate it has spouts iv great plenty ; bnt will they spout us half a million pounds per year to bear the expense of (iovernmeut? I should like to hear the question debated " Are wine drinkers and publicans now, as they were nineteen hundred years ago, noarer to the Kingdom of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, — the Kingdom of Heaven, — than aro censorious mirth-hating Pharisees ?" I am informed that Prohibitionists would like to prohibit tobacco smoking, and nearly all our sports and amusements, and leave us only their own three classical games of money-making, telling tough yarns, and playing Pharisee. Perhaps, in anticipation of a new Croinwellmn era, I should subscribe myself as Yours, in Grace, Mr Hkw-Agag-ix-Pikces. Feilding, June 18th, 1894.