PROHIBITION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 129, 29 November 1895, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

I TO THE EDITOK OF THE STAE. Sir,— Were I reponsibleforthe professedly puzzled state of " Moderate Drinker " I should quickly apologise to him ; but he says he is puzzled to know what I am advocating, and yet he says " The former (Prohibition), as he understands it, he can never get." Here is a man who, in one sentence, informs us that he is puzzled to know what I am advocating and then admits, practically, that he ". knows what I am advocating, and understands how I understand it by declaring . that I shall never get it as I understand it. If he so understands my mind he only pretends to be puzzled. Allow me to say (1) More than fifteen years ago I joined the Local Option party at Home, which had for its object the prohibition of the liquor traffic in a locality by the will of the people, and I have never, either on the platform or in the press, advocated the prohibition of drink by any other means. Had " Moderate Drinker " studied our principles he would have known that the Acts of 1893 and 1895 have been passed at our request to give the people power to prohibit the drink. (2) He declares Local Veto to be an event of the distant future. Please study the following figures, taken from the official returns of the last licensing election. Total number of votes recordded — Continuance of licenses, 41,695 ; reduction, 15,751; no license, 46,606. In Otago 8,215 voted for continuance of licenses, and 17,204 for Prohibition. Canterbury — Continuance of licenses, 10,887; Prohibition, 12,432. Had only a bare majority and not a three-fifths been required quite a number of the electorates in these two provinces would have been enjoying Prohibition. Clutha carried Prohibition. With the above and other figures before me, and remembering that temperance sentiment , is growing, it surely is reasonable for me to think that Prohibition is not far distant. (3) Yes. I have watched the tactics of Sir Wilfred Lawson, and have never seen him guilty of anything that was dishonorable. The principles of his Local Option Bill have been approved of repeatedly by the House of Commons, and the result has been the Liberal party made it a plank of their platform at the last election, and I am also aware that Sir W. Vernon Harcouri was defeated in Derby, my native county town. (1) Because the publicans' party opposed his Local Option principles ; (2) The Church party opposed him because of his Welsh Disestablishment Bill ; (3) Many of the aristocracy opposed him and his party because of their desire to reform the " .Gilded Chamber." If the Liberal party lost the day because* of Local Option it was a victorious defeat, for they polled more votes than the Conservatives, but the Liberal votes were split by having too many candidates. Allow me, in conclusion, to inform " Moderate Drinker " that I refnse to stapd in the open, whilst he cowardly fires at me from behind a fence. If he is ashamed of his own name and the cause he champions I positively refuse to reply to any more of his letters. . ' z I am, etc M J. Cockeßi Feilding, January 27tb, 1895. P.S.— The Bishop of Chester's Gothen. berg system is top complicated to refer to in this letter, and I am no advocate of it.— J.C.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sir,— Your correspondent " Moderate Drinker," as well as Mr Boots, whom he bo much admires, are apparently awaking out of a fifty years' sleep. Let me inform them, as they are rubbing their eyes and trying to realise the position, that" the great qtiestion of " Prohibition " is the natural growth of fifty years of teetotal education and agitation ; that it is the small minority of long ago that has grown into the victorious majority of today : that bat-eyed, blinking Christians, or sleepy, selfish moderates won't be able 10 stay the incoming tide or stop the rising sun ; that the wide-awake people of this, and every other civilized eouritry^are quickly coming to the conclusion that the extravagant, destructive, and pauperising reign of the tyrant Alcohol must come to .a speedy end. If Mr Cocker's methods for remedying the evils , of drink are "doubtful," there is no pog. sible doubt about the hoary- headed fal- . lacy of regulation. After 800 years trial and as many regulating statutes, the thing is found to be a positive, absolute, and eternal failure, and as such is about to be cremated, or buried, in' the grave of its foolish, time-aervins founders. Let me advise your correspondents to put on their goggles and survey the field onoe more. I am, etc,, Pro Bono Publico.