THE SUPPLY OF LIQUOR TO NATIVES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 383, 7 June 1866, Page 1

THE SUPPLY OF LIQUOR TO NATIVES.

{From tne Itawke’s Bay Times, 21st May.) Public attention having been directed to the flagrant breaches of the law relating to the supplying persons of the Native race with intoxicating liquors through the recent conviction of a Mohaka settler, has caused, we understand, increased vigilance to be exercised on the part of the police, and this will, we have no doubt, tend greatly to the checking of this evil, as we believe the stringent enforcement of the law would to its entire prevention. Several correspondents have taken the matter in hand, not only in our own columns, but also in those of our contemporary, where on Saturday last .we observed a letter from Poverty Bay, bewailing the evil, and proposing as its cure that existing restrictions should be repealed! The paragraph is a rich specimen of reasoning in its way and as such we quote it entire:— May B.—Morgan and eighty men arrived from Waiapu As usual, there was much firing and shouting, and in the «v ening I was sorry to see many of the natives intoxicated. As it appears impossible to stem this evil, it possibly wil l he the better way to plaoe them on the sam e terms as Europeans with regard to intoxicating drinks. I despair of ever seeing our native friends kept within the bounds of temperance. —lt so happens that we also have a letter from the same district from which we learn that the evil which excites the sorrow of this logical personage exists through the systematic violation ol a law for its prevention, by unscrupulous individuals resident there, and who are willing to risk the unlikely contingency of a prosecution, conviction, and fine, rather than sacrifice the profits to be derived *rom their practice, for of course moral considerations cannot be supposed to exercise any influence on the question with them. The paragraph we have quoted reads—“ As it appears impossible to stem this evil, it possibly will be the better way to place them (the Natives) on the same terms as Europeans with regard to intoxicating drinks;” and adds, “I despair of ever seeing our Native friends kept within the bounds of temperance,” i.e., notwithstanding the paternal care of the law to protect the Native race from the cupidities of the grogseller and the evils of intemperance, they are still found to be at the mercy of the one, and subject to the miseries of the other, through the existence of a class of men who are bold enough to set the law at defiance, therefore we should remove the existing restrictions on the traffic, take away the protecting arm of the law, and expose the Natives to the temptation of multiplied grog shops and a legal traffic. We will not do “ A Settler ” the injustice to suppose that he argues that the removing of existing restrictions would mitigate the evil which causes bis sorrow. It would indeed be a strange argument to use, for if those restrictions are not sufficient to prevent the carrying on of an illicit traffic they at the least serve to confine it within narrower bounds than it would assume if they did not exist. Therefore this can be no reason for their removal; but we fancy we can see one reason for it—-of weight no doubt in the minds of the illegal trafficers—and that is, that whereas his business is now carried on with risk and in fear of the law ; in that case it could be done openly and on a greatly extended scale. Considerations such as this may have their influence in favoring the re* peai of the law, and placing the Maori on the same footing as the European in respect to intoxicating drinks, bat not feelings of sorrow for Maori intemperance,— —a desire to stem the evil, —nor the despair of seeing them kept within the bounds of temperance.