NO-LICENSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1618, 4 December 1905, Page 3

NO-LICENSE.

Mr J. Dixon Ward, speaking in Auckland on the question of no-liconso said that he could not find anything in tho Biblo to show that compulsory abstinence was onforcod. Intompernnco was spokon against, but wine was doscribod as a good gift of God, Temporauco and not abstinonco wns tho Christian duty urged in tho Biblo, No-liconso was anti-Christian. Tho | Christian religion w r as free to all but not compulsory, but no-liconso was compulsion by brute force. It was injurious to the community in that it robbed a-man of his personal liborty, John Stuart Mill, tho greatest political economist England produced, wns strongly against such a measure of compulsion boing onforcod, Abraham Lincoln mado a strong declaration against such a law. It was an immoral law, because it sought to confiscate property lawfully acquired by lawabiding citizens. The temperauco people, when thoy got into powor, forced tho publicans to make extensions in the size of their houses on pain

of oxtinotion. Many had to borrow monoy to carry out these extensions, and they had to go to the wholesale houses. If there was any monopoly it had been the direct result of the past actions of his teetotal friends. Compulsory total abstinonce, as was proved by statistics, was dolotoriou3 to the public health. During the 20 years from 1880, in the prohibition State of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, the deaths from alcohol in those prohibited areas had risen from 1.57 per thousand to 2.41 pei' thousand. In license States the deaths from alcohol decreased during the same time from 2.47 to 1.63 per thousand 1 No-license drove out the licensed trader conducted honestly and openly, under police and magisterial supervision, into underground sly-grog shops, where, instead of the lighter and healthier beverages, ardent spirits wore consumed.