PROHIBITION AMD SOCIALISM.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 17, 30 June 1911, Page 14

PROHIBITION AMD SOCIALISM.

Sir, —The Prohibition Party have started their campaign in the Manawatu district. I have just gone through their monthly organ, and it set mo wondering if any dennite course of action could be adopted by the Socialists throughout tho colony to effectively deal with this question at tho coming elections. Whilst all Socialists know tnao prohibition is no cure for the social evils society is suffering from, yet 1 believe most of us vote prohibition, not because we recognise that it will do all tiie No-license people claim for it, .but solely in tho majority of cases because we select tho lesser of two evils. Personally, I think it would- not only reduce drunkenness, but possibly to a larger extent reduce drinking if prohibition were carried. So long as opportunities for drinking aro so many, tnero is a certain proportion of tho workingdfcss that will fly to drink for consoiatioi from their miseries, rather than listen to appeals from the Socialist. JVui-thor, wmlst there is some hope of getting the sober worker to listen to reason tnere is absolutely no hope of lis f-eaoliing the drunken worker. Drinkin tr habits tend to produce tho let-things-slide habit, whioh habit is particularly disastrous from .our point of v:cw Drink, if engaged in persistently, does sap the energy of the workers, ll a workingman begins to find his cmei pleasure in life in adjourning to tl*e Lai parlour every evening, then . IK entirely out ot our reac/i. Again, s. long as prohibition is held up so strongly as a cure for poverty—and to the superficial thinker it docs look as if it would have this result—so long snail wo have this large proportion of our population following this wiil-o'-the-wisp and ignoring our teaching". Once prohibition wero carried, and poverty still found existing as widespread as ever, tnen it is only logical to assume that tho earnest section of the prohibitionist movement would be readier to listen to us than they are now; at last they would have discovered that sobriety was no cure for poverty. Weighing up the whole position as carefully as 1 can, and after giving due weight to the per contra arguments, 1 am of opinion that we as Socialists should vote prohibition. 1 should like to hear the opinions of other comrades on the subject, and believe it is desirable that we como to a decision one way or the other ; that decision to be loyally adhered to, and so enable our vote to be effective.—Yours, etc., Ulen Oroua. R. ROSS.