Licensing and Drinking.

Patea Mail, 27 March 1882, Page 3

Licensing and Drinking.

(from normanby correspondent.)

The Iso-called, local option vote will be taken here to-morrow, and it is a pity the clause . ever crept into the Licensing Act. No doubt it was placed there in deference to the wishes of the total abstainers, and though every one must respect their purity of purpose, they make a great mistake, in supposing that local option suffrage will procure its fruition. They are only giving the people a lot of trouble for something worse than useless, for where the licenses in question are granted at all, a diminution of them wouldi create]:, more evils than it is intended to avert. Hawera last week gave its impressive testimony to this conclusion by a significant majority. Abstainers must first persuade people lbat : they should not,drink,. and till they accomplish this all their local option enactments are only a senseless waste of time, and an opening to the advent of more insidious enemies. -Little or no interest is expressed here in the matter, and with the exception of the pnblicans themselves, no one cares a straw about it. Few will record their vote, and these will probably be conto interested adherents who wish to propitiate th& pnblicanf Persons already licensed will naturally vote against any further extension of their own This should not be per-, jhitted, jnb/ householders. Igeherally should look sharply info it. There should be freetrado inrbeer selling, as in •'everything“else. The publican should no more be protected than the grocer or the butcher. If he pays a fee his profits are enormous, and protection in his case procures ns a dearer and a worse article than in any other.

Experience has shown that limitation of licenses for the sale of spirits does not diminish drinking in English communities.-' ‘.T-bp 'revefse/lias been demonstrated times without number. With them the; drinkings, habit has'bqconie c a; leconl ' uattii4 ; v howkefre is ft ever dormant, and no allurements are necessary to excite its activity. In other countries the case is very different. Amongst European nations (notably in and France), art is absolutely indispensible to draw the people out. Music is the charm usually employed, and these frugal beguiled by its winning fascinations. In ; Newjf?,eahvnd /wej arja troubled kyi no such romantic nonsense. We are too enlightened for that. ;* No auxilaries ; arei necessary to spiir us on to inebriety and excess. The sight of the casks;is. ?cjpjite; isufficient.., ; ;If.. might , have been ’supposed -that! onr; transportation to ‘ another'world-would have iihpafted a' InLw'direcitibn to'oiif.tkstes'arid predilec- [ •tionsf' Most' people leave lhe ; .|spther, .Country with a determination to abandon the custom, and for, a J yeai', or so will i (.;■ y, -;f! • iff, ~;■!)! :: t maintain 'the resolution. ~ Ask . them, . ; . ; 1 , i . .* :• » if ' i during ,that time.-tp, take ~a rdrink that uliil intoxicate,;; and they will-repel the? .imputation with’ an artlesk'air dfjinjiltad’ 1 jiiinpbence; * Eventually, hp’wdver’ they!' dlrop by . eas;y, r stages iutp the dominant ! clistpra., inveterate, . and education;? alone can' .keep it' within respectable' liniltatiPiis; -;'