W. F. CRAWFORD’S REPLY TO MR EAST.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 555, 27 October 1902, Page 3

W. F. CRAWFORD’S REPLY TO MR EAST.

(To the Editor of the Times)

Sir,—ln my letter of the 20tli, I claim to have answered fully and lairly every statement and ciuestion put to me by Mr least in Ins letter headed “ Prohibition and Mr Lysnar.” Mr East on the 24th renews the attack, using as his principle arguments

this time charges of “ misrepresenting facts and figures,” “ waving red rags,' ■' and that “ 1 flounder like a drowning man.” These assertions so ill lit my good opinion of Mr Ease as « .’airminded Britisher, that I fear the shadow of a spiteful hand was thrown over his pen as lie wrote, or mayhap a bitter tear from some wild-eyed enthusiast fell into his, ink bottle. These statements prove or disprove nothing. I have failed to answer a single point, repeat l ,it, and it will have my fullest consideration. I now propose to reply to yours of (lie 24til .- 1. Typhoid fever justified us in going to no end of trouble and the making of health enactments, appointing medical ollicers, and Borough by-laws. These are called “ control and regulation.” It lias never been proposed to shut up, burn down, or destroy the affected premises ; tanks are not removed nor are wells and cows prohibited.

2. Mr East ai-jss me if, on the closing of hotels v/orse evils result, wiio would be to blame for the worse evils ? Those who close the hotels cause a change from better to worse, and arc responsible for the added evils they introduce.

3. It is a fact that political and social reforms come slowly in Britain, not with that grand revolutionary rush of blood that marked 171)1) in France, 't he reason seems to lie that the bulk of the Brit sli people are sound, steady folk, not easily led by the hysterical, blind rush of unreasoning enthusiasts. 4.. The abolition of tolls, tithes, and

poll tax 'in Britain was part of a substitution of indirect for direct taxation. The abolition of hotel fee.s and

collecting the amount by added rates, would seem to increase local taxation. Can Mr East give a sound reason against it ? 0. I am glad Mr East refers to America, because the State of Maine has experimented on prohibition for over lifiy years, and on the evidence of Messrs liowntree and Sherwell, who made an exhaustive study of the liquor trade of the world, in the interests of temperance, whose compiled work lias gone through ten editions, is now adopted by the Husk in llall, Oxford, as. their text-hook, on the municipal reform in the drink traffic, we find in page 43 of their work, “ The Temperance Problem and Social Reform,” ' the following : ”in the year ending June 30th, IS9D, no fewer than 13au persons in the State of Maine, representing 2.01 per 1000 of the population, paid ihe special tax for the sale oi manufacture of 'intoxicating liquors. The total number of authorised liquor agents in the State is, howqver, oru> twenty, so that more than 1300 persons were presumably engaged in liquor selling, in defiance of the law. Aa a’ matter of fact, the actual number oi liquor sellers in the State is probably much in excess even of this estimate, for—as the Internal Revenue officials freely admit—a large number of persons sell liquor who do not pay the tax. We arc thus confronted at the outset of, the enquiry with evidence which points not so much to oleasional violation of the law as to the virtual non-observance oi the prohibitory law in a considerable portion of the State.” In support of this, Messrs Rowntree and Sherwell give eighteen pages of care-fully-investigated proof, 'the authors' work is accepted as a reliable textbook by a list of the principal Bishops of England, Mr Chamberlain and a number of statesmen, George Adam Smith and anumber of professors, the Times, Spectator, Scotsman, Temperance Record, and a host of Press authoritics, all declaring that it is Lhe completest, the best informed, and the sanest work on-the drink traffic that

as teen published. In conclusion, I claim to have proved on Mr Isitt’s admission that Prohibition m Clutha is a partial failure. That it is also an utter failure in Maine, where it has had a fifty years trial, and that its introduction into this district, in view of such failures,

is undesirable. There is only one point- of difference between myself and Mr East; that is, he advocates drastic measures and r advocate moderate and temperate reform I admit that evils arise from the drinking habits of the people, and that it is desirable to lead those who are so afflicted into temperance. I do not believe in driving or herding them. ■We British people will never stand the ***** *A.'f."CKAWFOM).