NO-LICENSE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 433, 8 September 1908, Page 3

NO-LICENSE.

Address by Miss Anderson Hughes.

Miss Anderson Hughes, one of the New Zealand Temperance Alliance lecturers, delivered addresses in the Masonic Hall on Sunday and last evening. A very representative gathering attended the Sunday night meeting, the hall being well filled. In the absence of the Mayor, Mr Hornblow was asked to preside. Alter the singing of a hymn and a short prayer by the Rev. Aitken, Miss Hughes settled down to her address, and immediately carried her audience with her. The fact of the speaker having conducted two previous meetings—one at 3.30 and the other from 7 to 8 p.m, in the Methodist Church —did not appear in any way to hamper her, and regret was expressed when the address was concluded. It was admitted by almost everyone that drink was a curse, said the speaker, and she fully elaborated this statement. Drink in the home had a detrimental influence, as it did also in the larger home—New Zealand. Ten thousand cases of drunkenness had been recorded in the courts last year, and this number did not represent the whole, 20,000 would be nearer the mark. What other trade held such a record ? An army of wrecked and ruined humanity. The cry of the politician was for increased population, and yet right here, said the speaker, we license a traffic which destroys people by the thousand. Last year the people of New Zealand spent close on millions sterling on liquor, and what return did they get for this vast expenditure? Revenue! The revenue from liquor was paid out of the pockets of the working man, and not out of the pockets of the liquor seller as some people imagined. Everyone contributed to the revenue in some form or other, and if the three millions spent in drink were diverted to other channels, we would still get the revenue and much more prosperity. The speaker defended female franchise, which had been opposed by the trade. The bird will fight to protect her young, and so the women have a right to take an interest in this question, because the traffic robbed them of those whom they loved and broke their hearts. Hundreds of women were hiding their grief. The speaker had no feeling or grudge against any person engaged in the traffic—it was the liquor —the poison—that did the mischief, and we should object to the sale of it. The people who voted for continuance were responsible for the ruin and misery it wrouglit. She urged her hearers to use every effort to vote the traffic out, and keep their own consciences clear ; and to see that their names were on the roll; and finally to vote nolicense for the sake of the women and children. The Rev. Mr Aitken pronounced the benediction, and the meeting closed.

one vote, another by four, others by 20, 27, 40, 42, 70 and so on. Clutha had flourished under 110license for 15 years and at last election had polled higher than ever before for continuance of nolicense. The speaker then quoted figures from Government official records in support of the reform, Mr A. Jonson said he had figures to prove the reverse. The speaker said if her interjector could prove that no-license had been a failure in Clutha, he could also prove that black was while (laughter). At a later stage Mr jonson handed a newspaper cutting to the speaker in support ot his statement. Miss Hughes asked from what paper he got the figures. Mr Jonson did not know. The speaker informed him that they were taken from a licensed Victuallers paper (Mr Jonson : that may be so) and they contained no signature or dates. Her facts and figures were not obtained from Licensed Victuallers nor from No - License organs, but from Government Official records, and she also spoke from a residential experience of Clutha. Mr Jonson exclaimed against the brewers, and stated that many hotel - keepers hardly made a living. “If you wipe out the brewers," s s id Mr Jonson, “ I am with you." The speaker sympathised with many publicans, and denounced the tied house magnates, and advised Mr Jonson, seeing her own time was fully occupied, to start a movement against the brewers and she would gladly become a member. (Laughter.) The speaker explained that uo-license did not mean noliquor, and it was legal to take liquor into no-license areas, but not to sell it. No one denied that liquor had been taken into noliceuse areas, but drunkenness and its concomitant evils had enormously decreased in no - license districts, and trade had improved. No-license has not retarded the progress of any electorate where it obtains, quite the leverse. Miss Hughes dealt at length with other uo-license districts. She referred to sly-grog selling convictions in licensed areas, and compared them with the convictions obtained in no - license areas to the disadvantage of the former. The speaker said Sir Joseph Ward had stated that every man in the Dominion was an asset to the State of and yet the drink traffic, at the lowest estimate, accounted for over a hundred deaths a year, to say nothing of the infirm and decrepit. Niue out of every ten inmates of the largest old people’s home in the Dominion attributed their downfall to drink. The speaker referred to the liberty of t-ie subject and other pha-es, concluding by stating that the opponents ot no-license were issuing a manifesto by 16 medical men in England in favour of liquor. She dealt with these 16 medical men and, said majority of whom held preference shares in breweries and distilleries, gave an outline of their ages and when they graduated. She then stated that 15,000 doctors, recognising the nation was in danger, through the drinking habits of the people, had urged upon the Imperial Government the necessity of enforcing scientific temperance lessons at schools. The usual votes of thanks concluded the meeting.