EYES ACROSS THE SEA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2362, 1 December 1908, Page 3

EYES ACROSS THE SEA.

OUR LICENSING BATTLE WATCHED. SWOLLEN DRINK BILL COMMENTED ON. Writing on November 21.. the Sydney correspondent of the “Dominion” says:—New Zealand attracted great attention throughout Australia this week, as the figures came through revealing the big advance in the figures of no-lioense. The subject has attracted the attention of all the newspapers, which devote long articles to the situation in their leading columns; and in meeting places and at street corners men, and women 100, discuss the no-license question eagerly, and arrive at varying conclusions, according to their points of view. The man who does not believe in nolicense thinks, of course, that- New Zealand is rapidly becoming a fine country to get away from, while tlio man who does is firmly convinced that a new area of peace and happiness is about to dawn in the Dominion, and that all the prosperity it has admittedly enjoyed will be as nothing to what is to come if people go on striking out the top line. The figures at .the local option poll taken in New South Wales not long ago were .sufficient to show that there exists here a strong feeling of antagonism to “tlio trade,” and on that account, and in view of the extent to which reduction was carried on that occasion, the experience of New Zealand is being watched here with the utmost interest. The “Sydney Daily Telegraph,” in a leading article on Tuesday last, draws attention to the fact that concurrently with the advance of the no-licenF vote in Now Zealand, there lias been in that country a steady increase in the drink bill and the number of persons charged with drunkenness. This article says:— “Rev. Edward Walker, of New Zealand ’drink bill’ compiler, in recording these ominous facts, says ‘they are obvious inferences as to the extent to which excessive drinking is taking ia hold of the country and the extent to which young men are increasingly becoming its victims, by which the supply of persons charged with drunkenness .is kept up and increased.’ Wliat is the explanation of these paradoxical increases in the charges of drunkenness, the consumption of liquor per head, and the nolicense voter* Exceptional police energy might account for some of the paraded l drunkenness; but not for such a steady and substantial enlargement ol : its volume. Prosperity may explain a swollen drink bill, on the theory that in good times people drink more; but in Now Zealand prosperity has not been a tiling of a year, but it lias been tile characteristic condition of the country ever since the nineties, and as far as that goes the impression - to be gained from report is that last year showed, if anything, mild signs of reaction. Probably a partial explanation of the seeming anomaly is that no-license lias many platonic friends. Plenty of moderate drinkers will vote no-license on the broad ground that if all the bars could lie closed so much the better •for the community, and because in these things the personal predilection is often subordinated to the moral ideal. As the consumption of liquor is not prohibited, however sympathetically no-license is carried, the drinker can still indulge according to his desire, and therefore makes no real sacrifice in going with the reformers.”