PROHIBITION.

Hastings Standard, Issue 36, 8 June 1896, Page 4

PROHIBITION.

[To the Editor.] Sib, —Will you be good enough to publish the following clipping by a ■writer in the New Zealand Mail, which will, I think, be a sufficient answer to the contributed article on Prohibition in your Saturday's issue. I am, &c., Common Sexse. Hastings, June 8, 189 G.

Perhaps you will allow me space to express my opinion (not unshared) upon the present state of things, which I consider are accurately described by the heading of this letter. I allude to the manner in which the majority are tyrannised over by a Pharisaical minority who wish to abolish all liberty of the subject in the matter of drinking strong liquor, or gambling in any shape or form, save only the mild form of the latter indulged in by themselves at church bazaars, Ac. New Zealand is not, as a country, a church-going one, and clergymen ( save in one denomination) have but little influence with the masses, and yet the power exercised by the parsons and their small following of temperance lectures and goody-goody busybodies is out of all proportion: greater than it would be were it not for the supineness evinced by those chiefly interested in the questions that these amiable enthusiasts take upon themselves to decide. The parsons and their followers declare that it is a sin to partake of that element which occupies such a prominent position in one of their own ceremonials and which their own great Master, if the Bible is to be believed, once Himself created when there seemed likely to be a shortage of it at a marriage feast. I allude of course to the miracle performed at ('ana in Galilee. Prohibition, however, will never be an accomplished fact until the nature of the race changes considerably. It is merely the easy-going, lethargic temperament of those who use liquor that has allowed the Prohibition movement to go as far as it has done. W ere a plebiscite of the people to be taken to-morrow, the result would altogether dishearten those who wish to make their fellows virtuous by Act of Parliament. Instead of year by year persecuting the poor publicans, who after all are fellow-citizens, and have, or ought to have, their rights as well as Mr Isitt and his intolerant crew, why not take a plebiscite at the time of the general election on the simple question of Prohibition, undisturbed by minor issues of increase or decrease of Licenses, which might be safely left to the licensing committee to decide, as the people would only elect men likely to give effect to their opinions ? Should the popular verdict be against Prohibition, then let the question be arbitrarily hung up for a lengthy term, say ten years, and thus give the people who have invested their all in the business the same rights and privileges they would possess if their money were invested in some other legitimate business. As it is there is no inducement to ail hotel-keeper to conduct his house in a respectable manner. *IIe knows not what the day may bring forth, and his only object is to clear as much as he can as quickly as he can. He may conduct his house like a young ladies' boarding schoel, anil yet at any moment, almost without being aware of it, may be accused by some ignorant chaw-bacon jack-in-office, of the breach of some of the regulations invented to make his life miserable, and by the indiscretion of a moment lose the savings of years, for of what value is a publichouse when its license is taken away ? Were the licensing laws administered strictly without fear or favour I have no hesitation in - lying that Prohibition would be achieved, as there would be no hotels. I have been (as a visitor) in a good many hotels in my time, and have never seen one yet in which it was impossible to get a drink after hours or on Sunday, and in the very best conducted hotels there are occasion on which rows and rowdy conduct have occurred. Rows happen in private houses, even the most aristocratic, and must at times in hotels, but are generally promptly suppressed (in police court language). If the hours were extended to 11 p.m. on week days, and Sunday trading (within regulated hours as in England) were recognised, the laws would not be broken

and there would be no more drinking than at present, if as much. At present a man, say, rides ten miles into a township, has business to do that takes him till nine or after, goes down to the hotel to pass an hour or two after being away backjn the bush for a month or sis weeks without seeing a soul, and is hardly at the hotel before he is told to clear out, as if he were a criminal. I say that the countrymen of no other country in the world (and I have been in one or two) would stand it as New Zealanders do. If the law wera really strictly administered even the New Zealanders would not : but it is not. The police make scapegoats every now and then, bat the fact still remains. The extra hour would make all the difference. A publican would then be able to please his customers without having to break the law, a fault that always suggests the reflection that it is as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and that you would suffer no more by keeping open to 2 a.m. tham 10.30 p.m. I passed a pretty lengthy period in London where the hotels (at that time) kept open on Sundays until 11 p.m., and were open all through the day, save during church hours, and can honestly say that I have seen more drunkenness on Sundays in New Zealand than I saw in London, and I have been over twenty years in the Colony. In London they won't serve a drunken man, but in New Zealand they simply deny having served him. Australian papers are continually deriding our liquor laws as a gross interference with the liberty of the subject, and with good reason. New Zealand is undoubtedly the ideal country for expennental legislation, but if the

faddists don't take care they will be left with only the parsons and themselves to experiment upon. Abolishing consultations drove a good £IOO,OOO yearly from this Colony to our neighbors, which means (as they have been abolished about IB years) £'1,300,000 driven away, besides the postal revenue lost by the same suicidal madness. The grand maternal element (so strong in New Zealand) wish to do away with horse racing. The iotalisaior is doomed so they say, and our Liberal Premier, from whom we expected better things, seems inclined to play into their hands, perhaps unintentionally. A large section would do away with smoking, and the next question will be where is our revenue to come from ? And the only answer available will be to put a £IOOO tax upon clergymen and a £IO,OOO tax on the lawyers and temperance lecturers.