LIQUOR IN VICTORIA

Hokitika Guardian, 6 November 1920, Page 4

LIQUOR IN VICTORIA

SET-BACK EOll ANTI-LIQUOR WORKERS. SYDNEY, Oct. 26. Last Thursday 216 districts in Vienna voted on issues long familiar to \ T ow Zealanders —the continuance of iquor licenses, the reduction, and the ibolition of liquor licenses. Out of the 116 districts only two secured the three- , fifths majority necessary to bring local | 1 no-license into operation. Only 51 dis- j tricts out of the 216 mustered even a bare majority for no-license. , This result is in spite of a most vigorous publicity campaign on the part of the anti-liquor forces—a campaign most extensive and appearing to have no regard for expense. Their arguments were forceful and striking, anti they had a due regard for logic. Their messages we're effectively set out on railway stations, street hoardings, theatre screens, | electric signs,- tramcars, and newspapers. Still they did not avail. The campaign conducted by the liquor trade, in comparison, was restricted and crude. It ranged from a badly drawn poster of a doctor telling a weeping and newly-made, widow that a drop of brandy would have saved hint,” to piiny appeals by the trade employees not to deprive them of a job. The ‘‘ drop of brandy ” poster became the topical joke of Melbourne. Anti-liquor took-the trade’s arguments seriatim and blew them to shreds. The trade tried to do likewise with the anti-liquor arguments, and rather pitifully, failed. Yet the vote was emphatic—Continu ance 264,000, reduction 33,000, nolicense 199,000. And if Victoria does not want the abolition of liquor, it is quite certain that the prohibitionists will succeed nowhere else, for they have their largest following in Victoria. The position seems to be that while the average Australian quite readily concedes the existence of an ugly drink evil, he will just as readily refuse a drastic remedy like prohibition. The great mfiss of Australians are moderate drinkers, particularly of their own excellent wines, and the uncompromising attitude of the prohibitionists, who place drunkards and criminals and moderate drinkers in the same category simply consolidates the moderate drinkers against prohibition. “We dislike , the publican, but we loathe the wowser” is an Australian phrase that about sums up the situation.