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PROHIBITION.

HON. CRiAjWFORD VAUGHAN—---EX-PREMIER OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA—AT FOXTON. There was a fair audience at the Town Hall on Thursday evening, when the Hon. Crawford Vaughan, ex-Prime Minister of South Australia, delivered a forceful address on prohibition, .dealing particularly with the economic aspect of the question. The Mayor (M. E. Perreau, Esq.) presided. The conflicting testimony advanced by both sides .to the Prohibition issue on the results of this great change in America were apt to beAvilder the ordinary elector, said the speaker. The best answer to the doleful prophesies of the Liquor Party however was afforded by the NorLieense Districts in New, Zealand. Mr. Vaughan went on to say that he had just come from the Masterton district, where he had looked in vain for men carrying flasks in their hip-pockets, nor could he find any sign of the dope fiend at work. No complaint about homes being searched was being made, and the only sign of delapidation that he saw was obtained'by a back view of the local brewery. Two splendid new banks had been opened at Masterton during the month and the hotel accommodation there was so good that the Gov-ernor-General has stopped at a Masterton hotel. The prosperity that had struck Masterton was a replica on a small scale of the prosperity ha, had observed in U.S.A. during his visits to that country since prohibition. There was no more chance of America going “wet” than there was of Masterton giving up the benefit of no-license. Business men at Masterton had told . him, that if the bar rooms were reopened it would divert £2OOO a week for genuine business to the Liquor combine. Think then what it would mean to the liquor interests if they could only make America wet again. It could be taken for granted that after five years experience of Prohibition the American nation of 115,000,000 people know what was good for them, flf one per cent, of the evils stated to be flowing for prohibition really existed their would be found some political expression of national discontent. The American Congress or Parliament however was more bone dry than ever. Men like Sir George Fen- 1 wick, Mr. Downe Stuart, the late Sir John Salmond, and other leading New Zealanders had. said that America had no intention of reverting to liquor. At one stroke £400,000,000 had been added to purchasing power of the United States, through the abolition of drink. This had reflected itself in a wave of prosperity, in good wages, increase savings on the part of the workers, and- in vast financial advantages to the farmers. The milk consumption in U.S.A. had increased by Ilf per : cent, per head, the wharf labourers and others drinking milk instead of beer. If a similar increase on milk consumption took place in New Zealand on Prohibition being carried (the consumption here was only 26 gallons per head against 54 in U.S.A.) the farmers would be able to sell locally an additional 13,000,000 gallons. That should be worth an additional £1,200,000 to the dairymen of New Zealand. The liquor party’s attempt to scare the farmers by the cry of taxation was surely a' sign of how the liquor produced softening of the brain tissue. The farmer was too knowing a bird to be caught by that kind of chaff. He realised that if the people of New Zealand did not spend £8,400,000 in liquor that that immense sum would be spent on other commodities or services. If a man for instance bought a hat he needed instead of a bottle of whisky which he didn’t need the hat would pay taxations, an the profits on it would go to the local storekeeper or manufacturer and be spent in New Zealand instead of going mainly to the whisky gang of Scotland, who were paying 30 per cent, dividends. The liquor bill of New Zealand was more than the total railway revenue. In other words with liquor ab- * olished -the Government could, if it wished, cut railway _ freights in half, and the country as a whole would be £3,000,000 a year in pocket. The liquor bill after deducting the taxation received was £600,000 more than the value of the New Zealand iamb trade. It might be said all i New Zealand was getting for her frozen lambs was dead marines and a pile of corks. Certainly the Dominion was getting 23,000 drunkards in three years, and. a host of other evilsI—the 1 —the Dead Sea fruit of the liquor business. The nation could not afford liquor financially or morally. The Congressional pommittee appointed to enquire into the efforts of prohibition in U.S.A. has reported that 1,000,000 lives had been saved in five years. This was more than the total number of British killed at the front in four years of war. Mr. Vaughan pointed out that England’s liquor bill was more than the interest on her national debt, was greater than the cost" of imperial defence, education and unemployment, insurance combined, finally he urged them to look to the no-lieense districts of New Zealand, Invercargill, Masterton etc., and they would -realise what prohibition would do for “God’s own Country.” At the conclusion of his address k the speaker was accorded a vote of . . thanks on the motion of Mr. J. . Chrystall and Rev. F. McDonald.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19251015.2.17

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2949, 15 October 1925, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
886

PROHIBITION. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2949, 15 October 1925, Page 3

PROHIBITION. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2949, 15 October 1925, Page 3

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