PROHIBITION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 53, 31 August 1896, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE STAR. Sir,—The New Zealand Official Year Book, 1895, page 209, gives breweries 102, males employed at such breweries 476, females 0. If we allow the 87 hands employed at the 27 malthouses then there are 563 hands employed in breweries and malthouses. The wives and families of the men are not employed though they may depend upon the hands so employed for support jnst as the families of the 20,000 men who could be employed at JIOO per year by the money spent in drink wonld be dependent upon tbem. Ido not believe that more than 3000 persons would be thrown out of work by closing the public house bar, for many of the houses would still be required for genuine accommodation. To close tbe bar does not mean tbat the house would be closed, though doubtless, a number of houses with scarcely any accommodation would be closed. What country has ever starved because it became virtuous ? The amazing and amusing picture drawn by Ignoramus of a third of the population of the country emigrating because the colony bad become sober, is certainly entitled to a good-tempered smile, but to save my friend any fears on this point let me inform bim that in Kansas during the first twenty-five years of settlement the population grew to nine hundred and ninety-six thousand, but during the next five years under Prohibition the population increased to one million five hundred thousand. Prohibition evidently caused an increase of population. As to the reference to the women's vote at the coming Prohibition poll, I maintain tbat the Prohibition question is decidedly the women's question. It is the wife of the drinker who is often the greatest sufferer through her husband's condnct. I am., &c., J, Cocker. Feilding, Aueust 27th, 1896.