LABOUR AND PROHIBITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1958, 29 March 1919, Page 2

LABOUR AND PROHIBITION.

THE “Maoriland Worker/’ the offie«l organ of the N.Z. Labour Party, in this week’s issue, urgeis Labour to vole out liquor at the forthcoming licensing poll. Summing up the position editorially, the Worker says : “In the natural order of social progress, Labour may have looked to State Control as a remedy which would have eliminated the worst evils of the drink habit and provided a half-way house to prohibition by weaning the people of the habit gradually. Owing, however, to the zeal of our'Prohibition friends, the question has reached a stage of development when one answer alone can be given "by the friends of Labour —and that is a straight-out vote against the Trade. The open bar is an open menace to society, It ruins thousands. It deprives many promising young men of their jrdf-con-trol; it paves the way to immorality, a' careless way of living, and ultimate ruin. It is a deadly foe ot] home life; it tills (he hospitals and the lunatic asylums. Drink is had for health of mind and body; constantly indulged in it makes a man a weak, irrational creature, lacking judgment, a clear brain, a strong will, iuj.d moral fibre. These are facts so well authenticated that they are undeniable. It is not a private habit having-wide and far-reaching effects, not merely on those who are the direct victims of the open bar, but on the whole of society. Man cannot live unto himself alone; lie is a social being, with rights and duties and responsibilities. The liquor traffic makes for poverty, for disease, for insanity, for premature death. All these arc anti-soda! evils, and as such Labour must light, against them. The liquor (rattle is the bulwark of properly and privileges, lienee is no friend of Labour. .Against the publican we have nothing to say: he himself is a victim of circumstances, and would benefit by being deprived of a Irade which cannot but make for social misery and suffering. To vole onl the traffic is I he clear duly of all who have (lie best interests of Labour at heart, and we call upon Labour men and women to do (heir duty on April lOlh by striking mil the top line and’ giving a death-blow-to one of the

worst forms of production for profit.'W