THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND ITS ACTION ON THE ABORIGINAL RACE.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 22, 17 June 1867, Page 140

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND ITS ACTION ON THE ABORIGINAL RACE.

A respected correspondent, in. a temperately, written communication winch will be found in another column of this morning’s issue, has directed our attention to the encouragement given by our rulers and magistrates to the drinking system by the increased lacilities they have given to the trafpe in the multiplication of licensed houses, and in the ignoring of the law which makes it penal to supply persons of the native race with intoxicants.

The subject opened up by our correspondent is indeed a wide one, involving .questions of both moral, and political importance, —one, too, that cannot be contemplated hy the philanthropist without pain, but amongst the right; thinking portion-of the community there is and can be but, one opinion concerning the course of policy pursued by our rulers,—that it is altogether a false ■ and suicidal one, involving the physical and moral degradation of the colonist, and the-speedy annihilation ofthe nativq race, the

great bugbear of the clay on this ques-j -tion-of-questions is the word Revenue,' and.most true it is that a great pror portXbn of the Government receipts is u . ... * j , at present’ derived .from the drinking i system; but if any legislator be bold ; enough to direct his attention to the < 1 subject of the cost to the people from 1 •whom this portion-of the revenue is * w j i raised, he cannot but he convinced thatj its sacrifice (if it were involved) would ‘ cheaply purchase the immunity from - the misery, poverty, crime, and at ten: i dant evils 'of the present order of \ things. !

It appears to us that another session of the General Assembly of New Zealand canuot be allowed to pass without some attempt at a reform of so great an-evil —one which lays the whole energies of a people in the dust, and by its baneful, counteracting influence neutralises all the advantages which, as a Colony, we possess in our fine climate and freedom from many of the ■obstructions to progress experienced in the old country. But the efforts of the legislature in this direction must be seconded by the magistrate, or all legislation, on this or any other subject, is much worse than useless. If law 3 are to be placed on the statute book merely to be ignored by the executive police, far better would it be that no legislation at all should take place, rather than laws should be treated with contemptuous indifference. It is well known that the law prohibiting the supply of natives with intoxicants is ■openly and shamelessly violated dav by day by the dealers in them ; well known to the police and magistrates; -openly acknowledged by the dealers •themselves, when, as frequently happens, a case of the deadly action of the traffic upon its victims is exposed by the press. Day after day, too, are the natives to be seen in the act of procuring the deadly article from the licensed dispenser, and reeling from the effects of their indulgence. Not seldom are some of the worst of these cases brought before the magistrate, nud the victim of the snare set for him at almost every corner, —and, to say the least, winked at by the magisterial body,—fined for his drunkenness. But even in these cases his being able to procure the means O: intoxication is treated as a matter ol

course, and no enquiry is ever made, that we have known, as to how or where it was obtained, or w’uo it is that has transgressed the law in supplying it, although it would be but just to the victim that this should be done, nnd the worst party of the two be made to feel the effects of his crime as well as the other.

We are happy to say that dealers in alcoholic liquors in some of the other provinces are not permitted to violate the law for the protection of of the natives as they are in Hawke’s Bay. We frequently meet with cases reported in our contemporaries in which the law is brought to bear upon the transgressor, and we see no reason why the liquor trafficers of our province should be exempt from them.