THE LIQUOR STATISTICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 425, 18 August 1908, Page 4

THE LIQUOR STATISTICS.

The Tyttelton Times, dealing with the satistics of drunkenness in New Zealand, as given in the police report, remarks that they all show that where the public bars have been closed there has been a decrease in drunkenness. “We are inclined to think, however,” says the paper, “ that the reformers would obtain better results if they would reserve a little of their energy for the spread of temperance doctrines by the old-fashioned method of moral suasion. Thirty years ago there was no talk ot making the people sober by Act of Parliament, but there were temperance workers, who numbered their converts by hundreds and thousands. Temperance societies were as common as football clubs are now, and every little hamlet had its band of hope. But local option seemed to provide a shorter cut to the extinction of the liquor traffic thau personal abstinence did, and the reformers turned their attention from the conversion of the individual to the organisation of the electors. Of course, they have achieved a considerable measure of success in their new sphere of activity from the purely political point of view, but the figures prove that they have made little impression upon the habits of the people. The consumption of alcohol increases year after year in spite of all their efforts to restrict its sale, and it is doubtful if the nation is as sober now as it was a decade ago. Not half the electors who vote No-license are total abstainers, and if by any chance the prohibitionists should succeed in getting the bare majority for the decision of the issue, probably a very large proportion ot their support would be withdrawn. The ‘ moderate ’ who votes No-license just ‘to give the publicans a fright ’ will be of little use to the prohibitionists when the real pinch comes. ’ ’