EXPERIMENTS. Tried and Found Wanting.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 63, 14 September 1901, Page 8

EXPERIMENTS. Tried and Found Wanting.

NEW ZEALAND is a free country — in patches Some of its legislation partakes of the quality of its freedom, and a good many of its citizens wonder why it should be so The people, like the Paihament, dabble m experiments, and the experiments are usually on a small scale, a little coiner of New Zealand benefits, 01 otherwise, by these experiments, and, by the simple piocess of shifting his abode occasionally, a person lesident in this free country may sample all sorts of local legislation, and decide what is best for his constitution * » » The observant person's attention is called to the fact that the experiment prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors m the King Country has been attended with serious results — to the enforced prohibitionists — who have transgressed the law and injured themselves with illegal concoctions It has been considered that the fact of one district 01 so having piohibition would ait as an invitation to othex distncts to accept the doubtful boon, and pationisc sly giog Local prohibition is. and always was, a boon to the harpy, the poisonoi, and the policeman If piohibition has been found good foi one distnct in New Zealand, it will be found good ioi the whole of the countiy * » • It is not icasonable that the people of any specified area, who arc worked up to the requisite pitch, should say, "We will stand aloof, and run our own windmill ' We are said to be "one people with one destiny '' Why not include "one land ' as well? On moral points of law local opinion is of no benefit to the community If a reform is good at all, it is good foi evciy conservative portion of this countiy Local optionists smiply, by then actions, place themselves on a pedestal apart from everybody, and virtually say Such and such a ineasuie is good foi us few people , hang the rest ' Reforms m the hquoi laws aie allegedly for the moral good Aie they for the moral good of a few settlements, or foi t he moirO good of the people of New Zealand' ll * » * Local fads have frequently not been successful and any local fad that gives an opening for constant bleaches of the law, as m optional piohibition, may be advantageously eliminated One section of the community is as deserving of attention as- others All should have legalised alcohol, or all should have no alcohol, and the whole of the people should decide the question foi the whole of the colony.