The Other Side of Prohibition.

Manawatu Herald, 30 November 1899, Page 2

The Other Side of Prohibition.

» FROM THE EVIDENCE OF THE REV. DAVID MACRAE. As the voice of the Prohibitionist is still loud in the land, it is the not inopportune to refer latest to the latest evidence that from has been received of the maine ineffective working of the prohibitory law in the State of Maine. The evidence is given by the Rev. David Macrae, a popular Presbyterian clergyman, well known throughout Scotland for his literary ability and for his earnest labour on behalf of total abstinence. He visited America recently, after an interval of thirty years, and has communicated the result of his observation to the •' Glasgow Herald." He lays it down that |the enforcement of any law depends largely upon public conviction and public feeling. "No law enforces itself; and even those who are appointed to enforce the law take their cue from public sentiment." He instances the following glaring case : — " In the State of Maine, which is, and has long been, a prohibition State, the city of Bangor, with a population of 27,000, has over 220 places ' where drink is illegally sold. A Bangor gentleman told me he had himself taken the trouble to go round and count them, and (leaving out doubtful cases) found 223 places where liquor could always be had. This included hotels, saloons stores and kitchen dives. This gives one such place to every 126 persons. The greatest consumers of drink are the lumbermen when they come into the city ; but at any time, even when the lumbermen are not there, drink can be got in most of these places. The law prohibits such sale, and heavy penalties are attached to its violation ; but public sentiment in the city is not sufficiently strong in favour of the law, and the magistrates and police (who reflect public sentiment) though they see the law violated, take no action except in flagrant cases— not always even then."

It is instructive to compare a prohibition city with New com- Zealand. In this colony, pared with its 727,000 of popuwith lation, there are 1526 new licensed houses, or one to Zealand, every 476 persons. In "prohibition" Bangor, the number is one to every 126 persons, or nearly four times more than in this country. There are more licensed houses in the country than in the towns in proportion to population in this country ; and if the same rule is assumed to apply in Maine, the rural districts of that State would have one .lygrog establishment to every hundred people. It is easy to imagine what hot beds of vice and demoralisation must exist in the paradise of pro- ' hibitionists. When it is borne in

. , .—.. _ _»._—^ mind that there are eleven boroughs In New Zealand in which no public houses exist, it will be seen that the average in the towns cf this country is very low indeed. If we* compare " drink-cursed" Wellington with " prohibition Bangor, the result is altogether in favour of the New Zealand city and the licensing system. Wellington has one public house to every 789 of her population, while Bangor . has one sly-grog shop to every 126 persons ; in other words, prohibition increases the number of drinking shops more than six fold. It may be said in passing that Wellington has few hotels in proportion to population than Auckland with one to 666 persons, Christchurch one to 454, and Dunedin one to 439. Riverton, with 1000 residents has seven hotels or one to every 143 persons; but even this liberal supply does not come near to the " prohibition " city of Bangor. Kumara, with one hotel to every 88 residents, and ..„.,, Hokitika with one to every 95, are the^ " frightful examples" of this country:™ but the people of these towns make no hypocritical pretence that they wish to prohibit the traffic in liquor. Any one calmly considering the statistics must conclude that New Zealand has not much to learn from Maine in the matter of liquor laws and usages.

Reverting to the Rev. Mr Macrae's letter, we find him stat* the ing that the liquor trade un- in Bangor is regulated by written an unwritten law, tacitly law. adopted by the authorities and by the people, as a working compromise. So long as the grog-shops conform to this unwritten law they are very rarely interfered with. So safe do the liquorsellers feel under this tacit arrangement - some of them make little or no attempt at concealment. One saloon has a large poster in its window '• Old Rye Whisky," and another " The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous." Still more astonishing, a Ust of the principal grog shops —most of them as the names indicate, kept by Irishmen —is actually published in the City Directory ! And this in a prohibition State I The unwritten law —which is the real one in force —simply requires that no liquor be sold to women or children, j or after midnight or on Sundays, and lin general that an orderly house be ' kept. Surely sensible people will agree that it is better to have the liquor trade controlled by law and authority than to have its regulation left to the caprice of the people. Ut Macrae, we note, places more reliance upon the educational efforts being put forth by tbe temperance organisatians lin America than upon prohibitory 'laws, which in operation prove to be but the cloak of an organised hypocrisy and the means of bringing authority into contempt. —N.Z. Times.