LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3865, 1 November 1928, Page 2

LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

MR. R. HOGG’S ADDRESS. MUNICIPAL CONTROL ADVOCATED. THE QUESTION REVIEWED. In an address Avhich he gave at Palmerston North on Monday evening, Mr. R. Hogg, of Wellington, adA T ocated State or municipal control of the liquor traffic. Mr. E. Pyeroft Avas in the chair. In opening, the speaker declared that for over 40 years he had been a staunch adA’ocate of State control, an issue Avhich /was justified because there Avas more than two sides to any big question, and sometimes more than three. MR. HICKEY’S ADDRESS.

Mr. Hogg devoted some time to replying to Hon. Simon Hickey’s prohibition statement in Palmerston North recently. Giving some statistics, Mr. Hickey said that the Year Book gave the annual consumption of liquor at £0 2s Gd per bead, but there Avere. so many people Avho did not drink that the drinking public could be reckoned at about 300,000 souls, Avho consumed £26 worth per head per annum. “The majority of this 300,000 would be Avorkers,” Mr. Hickey said. Mr. Hogg gave this statement an emphatic denial. Mr. Hickey, for a Labourite from Sydney, was Aveak in economies. He might put that sort of stuff over on Australians, but not on New Zealanders. “I don’t belie A-e tnose figures or statements of Mr Hickey. I don’t believe that the majority of the. 300,000 are workers,” continued Mr. Hogg. “We have only a little over 000,000 males altogether in New Zealand. The number of adult male Avorkers is less than 200,000. Mr. Hickey’s statement, therefore, means that all the Avorkers must spend an average of ten shillings weekly on liquor or that one in every four Avorkers is a drunkard. Our convictions for drunkenness average less than one half per cent, of the population.” ENGLAND’S DRINK BILL.

Air. Hickey also said that England’s drink bill Avas 300 millions sterling. That Avas not so. Mr. Hickey Avas including the bills for Wales and Scotland as Avell as England. Mr. Hickey said that if England carried prohibition the 300 millions could be better used, and the Avomen could get more silk stockings. “They have plenty of silk as it is,” said Mr. Hogg. “Mr. Hickey does not alloAv for taxation and lioav it must come back on tlie land. Mr. Hiekey forgets that if you cease to use the luxuries that are taxed you loAver the standard of living, you loAver the cost of living, and thus you loAver the rate of Avagcs. Continuing, Mr. Hogg said that if all Government-control Avere removed from the everyday affairs of the people, what a rabble there AA’ould he. Private ownership under license had been tried for generations, and failed. Prohibition had been tried in America and failed. “NATURALLY TEMPERATE.” Continuing, the speaker said that NeAV Zealanders Avere naturally temperate, and the enforcement of .prohibition AA’Ould be an incentive to breaches of the peace. For some years before prohibition in America convictions for drunkenness had steadily decreased, but following the Volstead amendment, such couA’ictions had increased in number. The speaker adA r oeated State control because he had seen it in operation, and observed its beneficial effects in Scotland. Prohibition, tried in Canada, bad failed in all the provinces but two, State control being substituted in its place. The speaker advocated the control of the liquor traffic not by the national government, but by local authorities, such as municipalities and -county councils. ENLARGING THE POINT. Continuing, Mr. Hogg said if Mr. Hickey has read the divorce court proceedings in England —these got so bad that the Imperial Parliament had to pass a bill prohibiting the publication of divorce court evidence —lie must know that dressdrunk Avoman is a greater danger to the race than a Avhisky-drunk man. If Mr. Hiekey saved his £300,000,000 to-morroAV what avould happen —stagnation. Money spent in liquor or any other commodity doesn’t remain in the coffers of the seller. It passes into circulation again in _the form of wages, prices of raw material again chiefly, made up of wages, and these again, pass on ad lib. KARL MARX THEORY. “But Mr Hiekey, Labour leader, believes Avitli Karl Marx that the workers are robbed —not at the public house bar, but at the point of production. With Marx, he believes that the worker is robbed of 65 per cent, of the wealth lie creates. The balance, 35 per cent, he has to disburse for clothes, food and housing. This is the Marxist’s theory. Housing claims a third of his 35 per cent. Food takes another third, leaving him with onethird or less than 12 per cent, of the Avliole 100 per cent, created by his labour Avith Avhich to find himself, his Avife and family in clothes. And yet Mr. Hickey, believing tTiis, tells us the Avay to keep the worker out of poverty is to stop him by force from drinking! Mr. Hiekey knows that saving that £300,000,000 means Ave have to find a lot of taxes front some other source. Would he put that on the farmer? Le.t him tell the farmer that! Would he put it on the Avorker to make it an additional charge on that miserable less than 12 per cent, out of which ho

lias already to buy his clothes and the clothes of his wife and family. Let him tell the workers that! Surely the least objectionable way, the sanest way, the fairest way, is to place as much of our taxes as possible on luxuries, because those who can afford luxuries are assuredly the best able to pay taxation. QUESTION, NOT ABNORMAL. When did a doctor or a Minister of State recommend the performance of a drastic operation upon the body physical or the body politic respectively? asked Mr. Hogg. A surgeon performed a drastic operation upon a patient, continued the speaker, when the conditions were abnormal. The liquor question in New Zealand was not abnormal and therefore did not warrant the drastic steps which it was proposed to take by bringing in prohibition. He stood for the third issue of state control, which was no new love of his, but was a cause which he had urged for many years. His objection to prohibition was on account of things which must come to pass should this measure he enforced. When the prohibitionists had a third issue they were strong in its favour, as evidenced by the following passage in a manifesto, signed by Rev. John Dawson and Rev. Frank Isitt, which was issued in 1904 by the Alliance: “Reduction must be retained and its elimination strongly fought, as a violation at once of democratic right and of public faith.” TWENTY YEARS AGO. Now, at that time, the Alliance had two issues on the ballot paper —reduction and no-license. If to eliminate one of its two issues was a violation of democratic right and of public faith, how much so would be the wiping out of the State control issue? The deleting of the reduction issue left by the prohibitionists with still one issue to vote on against the straight-out affirmative of the supporters of continuance. But the removal of State control disfranchised completely, so far as the liquor question was concerned, the speaker and those who believed with him in State control. He, had never voted for prohibition, and he had never voted for continuance. The only time he voted was since State control had been put on the ballot paper. He never voted for what he did not want. He could always get that without voting for it. To use the words of Rev. John Dawson and Rev. Frank Isitt it would be “a violation at once of democratic right and of public faith” to rob him and those who thought with him of their right to vote on this question. EARLY PROTEST RECALLED. Referring to the enforcement of prohibition, as the Seddon Government proposed, were the vote carried, Rev. John Dawson and Rev. Frank Isitt over 20 years ago placed the following protest on record: To make the possession of liquor a crime, the effective detection of which would require the cor - relative right to search in every house would be to establish an odious and inquisitorial tyranny entirely foreign to the fundamental principles of British law and to the whole spirit of British liberty. We protest against the threatened invasion of the privacy of the home by inspectors, against the espionage that clause 9 (local prohibition) would produce, against the strained relations and suspicion that would result amongst neighbours, against the incentive to breaches of the peace on the part of decent and self-respecting citizens which would accompany inquisitorial questionings and domiciliary vists. IN THE UNITED STATES. That is an exact description of what is taking place in the United States to-day; that, and worse. And that is what the prohibitionists, should they carry prohibition, would bring on New Zealand. Rev. John Paterson is reported to have said that the agitation for State Control was all “eyewash.” Well, even “eyewash” has its beneficial uses. If one has an affection of the eyes and consulted a specialist, it is a thousand to one the first thing he would prescribe would be an “eyewash.” To so characterise a serious proposition is no argument. Lord Shaw had said: With State control there is no appeal to the voter’s private interest. His only interest is that of the general taxpayer, and he is influenced by his experience and views of local and social welfare. Clearly Lord Shaw did not think 'State control was eyewash. Further, Graham Brooks had said: Progress in temperance depends -at every step upon a convinced public opinion, so that the first practical issue of the problems is to get our temperance methods into that position where public sentiment can act and be acted upon with the greatest efficiency. WHAT NEW ZEALANDERS DRINK. - If it was considered what New Zealanders actually drink it was amusing to hear people speak of drunkenness in this country. Actually, statistics showed that the New Zealander drank a pint of beer every five days, a nip of whiskey every- nine days, and a thimbleful of wine every day. “We are told that prohibition brings happiness and prosperity,” continued the speaker. “Let us take the case of dry America.” He took the Anti-Saloon League’s book for 1925 which gave a record of statistics up to 1923. Unfortunately for him the League saw that the statements each year were giving the lie to their hopes and after 1925 they took care not to include the statistics of subsequent years. However, he had procured

figures from United States official publications to supplement those which he obtained from the League’s book. In the first few years after war there was a wave of prosperity. During the war America worked for the other belligerents, and when the war wasover her own work remained to be done. WHAT STATISTICS REVEAL. Therefore, much of the afterwar prosperity was due to this and in no way of prohibition. Of course, that prosperity was reflected in the bank deposits of the United States of America. Let us have a look at them. The increase in the number of depositors was 31. G, but in the same time in New Zealand, when the country was not particularly prosperous, the increase was 40.90. Deposits increased in the United States by 78.14 per cent., but by 104.30 in New Zealand. In the United States the workers enjoyed 36.6 per cent, of the increased wealth, but in New Zealand the figure was 70.2. Before prohibition came into force, said the speaker, the people in tha United States were becoming more temperate. There was the same trend towards sobriety as there was in Britain and New Zealand. During the six years preceding prohibition the convictions for drunkenness had been reduced in St. Louis from 6277 to 3941; in Rochester from 2678 to 792; in Philadelphia from 36,000, to 16,800; and in Milwaukee (a city of breweries) from 3374 to 482." What had happened since? In St. Louis, since the country went dry, the convictions had gone up to 10,082 in the last year; in Rochester to 2925; in Philadelphia to 52,910; and in Milwaukee to 7742. In Britain the number of convictions for drunkenness in 1914 was 183,000. In 1921, the number was reduced to 95,000 and in 1925 to 75,000. The decrease showed a steady trend to temperance and he hoped it would continue. If New Zealand was taken, something similar would be found. In 1914 the convictions for drunkenness were per 1000 12.6; in 1921, 6.9; and in 1927, 4.5; the lowest in any White community. QUESTIONS ANSWERED. In reply to a question at the conclusion of the lecture, the speaker stated that he did not know where the idea of prohibition originated unless it was in the Garden of Eden, and then it was also a failure. Though the open-door saloon had been nominally abolished, liquor was still obtainable in America. On the motion of Mr. A. R. Rush, seconded by- Mr. A. Duncan, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded the speaker. [Extended report by arrangement.]