SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1904. CLAUSE NINE. Is It Dead or Only Sleeping?

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 221, 24 September 1904, Page 6

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1904. CLAUSE NINE. Is It Dead or Only Sleeping?

PROHIBITIONISTS and Moderates are indeed to be congratulated on the strength of the party m the House of Representatives which was able to give the quietus to Clause Nine of the Licensing Bill. While the clause is in a trance, it will be possible for moderates and prohibitionists in no-license districts to have as much liquor as they require. For the great principle they have nobly fought for, talked for, and won, long live the moderate ' It would be a schockmg interference with the liberty of the subject for a policeman to burst at night into your house just before supper, and grab your stock of beer before you had a chance to sample it. * * * And yet a policeman in a Southern no-license district only a few weeks ago "bailed up" a cart containing liquor, and confiscated it. It was "presumed" that the person who owned it would sell it when he got it out of the cart. This wasn't an interference with the liberty of the subject. It was alleged law, and a pretty poor sample of the article, too. There is only one section of temperance folks in New Zealand who* go "bald-headed" for out-and-out prohibition — water m the hotel and water in the house — and they aie m Auckland. They are looked upon by the "liquor-m-the-home prohibitionists" much as the early Christians were looked upon by the Romans. * * * Most temperance folks, m taking a pledge, promise they will neither "touch, taste, nor handle" intoxicants, and will try their best to persuade others to follow suit The liquor-supporting teetotallers, who have helped to throw out Clause Nine, may not "touch, taste, nor handle" the drink themselves, but they want to give everybody else the privilege of consuming as much of the "curse" as they care about. And all the argument about the support 01 the moderates being necessary to the cause of prohibition doesn't alter it. * * * If the Prohibition Party has to bribe the "moderates" with promises of private liquor to get their support, the support isn't worth having. The

moderates who use all their influence against the party of licenses, knowing that by getting no-license they deprive other persons of the liberty of buying small quantities of liquor, while they themselves are perfectly at liberty to buy large quantities, are not the sort of friends prohibitionists ought to care about. If the latter say a hotel is a curse, they should own up like men that the moderates' decanters and cellars are curses too. * * * But suppose they were to suddenly take the view that all liquor was a curse — a curse to the worker, and a ciu-se to the church-goer, who was never intoxicated in his life. Suppose they were to be "bad friends" with the private consumer ? Well, the private consumer might give the prohibitionists the cold-sihoulder, and vote the wrong way. And supposing the prohibitionists wiped all grog out. What would they wrangle abo-ut then ? We give it up. Clause Nine is probably like a cat, and has that number of live® In common justice it ought to appear until the House is sick of seeing it, in which case it can. be hidden m the statutes