THE DRINK TRAFFIC.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 163, 7 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DRINK TRAFFIC.

LESSONS OF THE WAR. DVANCE OF THE PROHIBITION MOVEMENT. BUT NEW ZEALAND LAGS BEHIND. Matters in connection with the drink affic and advance of the cause ot rohibition wa s the oustanding feature i the report of the president (Mrs on) read at the annual convention the W.C.T.U. Inter alia, ie president said: — When the uropean war was declared, an Amerim pressman remarked to Senator 11. . Hobson, that "Now the temperance eople would have to get out of the melight." But what has really hapjned is that the cause of Prohibition as been advanced beyond the dreams : its most ardent supporters. It as not long before all the nations inolved in the great war realised that booze' must be hit. and hit, hard to iake military operations successful. Lnd in enforcing sobriety in their rmies and among the civilpopulaion the nations at war have come 3 realise that there are many other ivantages to be gained from national rohibition besides and beyond military uccecs, such as industrial efficiency, 'hicti at present is esential to miliary efficiency, and after the war is nded will be needed to rehabilitate he nations financially and economiEngland.—Throughout the whole ritish Empire there are men ana romen of all classes and creeds who re not abstainers, and have never dvoeated temperance, yet would have eon glad and proud if in this time f severe crisis tne Nation had set the xampie, instead of allowing Russia to ead the way in national prohibititon ,n the largest scale the world has ■et seen. When King George prolaimed himself a total abstainer foi he period of the war, and Lord Kitchner and others followed the royal lead, he hopes of temperance reformers ran ligli, and though every effort was nade to get a million Londoners to ign the pledge, the results have been isappo nting. But the events of last inter provided an object lesson rhich we hope will never be forgoten. It was found that strong drink eriously interfered with the manuicture of munitions of war, with oal mining, with shipbuilding and retiring, and with the operations ot lany other trades needful for the proper equipment of our army and ind caused the declaration by Mi jloyd George that "England has hree great enemies—Germany, Aus;ria, and drink, but the greatest of lies'e is drink." Since then the hours or the sale of drink have been retricted from noon to 2.30 o clock >.m.. and 6 to 9 o'clock p.m., and the , rime Minister, speaking in the House f Commons said that where the iquor restrictions had been introduced ihere had been an appreciable diminuion in drunkenness, and a considerible reduction in the amount of liquor •onsumed, besides which more elfeciive work had been performed. This hortening of the hours of the trade, .-oupled with the order-for the nonireatmg of soldiers, has thrust the subject prohibition before the teople of Great Britain as it could not lave been done in normal times, and vhen the war closes the temperance drees will find themselves on a vanage ground for pressing their cause n the future.

Russia. —The result of prohibition n Russia has been beyond the imagination of the most hopeful and extravagant prophets. The World's Outooli reports that the pol'-ce have little jr nothing to do, babies have all the nilk they need, women go about as f they were in Paradise, savings banks ;an now be said to be the substitutes : or vodka shops, and at the end of the irst seven months for prohibition, ac:ording to the Comptroller of the treasury, the total savings in the Russian ban las had increased 147 per :ent.; illness, insanity,accidents, inures, and alcoholic sicknesses decreashi in' an astouding measure, due to •he fact that money hitherto used for irink has been diverted to the pur:hase of the decencies and necessities )f clean living. In spite of the fact ;hat exiling vodka meant giving up in annua! revenue of five hundred milion dollars, Russia sent it out at the joint of the bayonet. The gain lias lot onlv been in savings bank depoiits, but in the increased efficiency af her people, and to-day Russia, without vodka and with the war, is better off than Russia with vodka and without the twar. And so we are not surprised to find that recently as January 4th of this year it was telegraphed through the world's press that "There are indications that the restrictions upon the sale of vodka ,vill continue after the war. The Government are erecting a factory to utilise the enormous stocks ot alcohol in the manufacture of sythetic rub-

To-day France is rated among the greatest of the alcohol •onsuming peoples. There are halt a million .saloons in that country; this rii pans an average of one to every 80 Inhabitants; Paris alone has 30,000 saloons. Gustave Herve. editor of the 'r.fimtr revolutionary Socialist organ, md one of the leaders in the tight iTainst alcohol said in a recent editorial ■ "It is hardly worth while to ■ aye France in the trenches, if it lie mlv that alcohol may make it a desert r a cemetery in the future." Yet since the opening of the European ivar last year the military authorities 'e C an to take drastic measures for the oppression of alcohol m the army, urgeons and military, physicians in the lospitals and army infirmaries found •hat alcoholic patients were the worst isU with which they had to. deal their wounds would not heal, and [he r systems, weakened by liquor, rerefused to bear the fat'gue of the battlefield. This led to the prohibition 3 f the manufacture and sale of a<inthe throughout France. It will gite some idea what the consumption Las to hear that stopping of the trafic meant the dropping by riient of a revenue of over sixty Xnernl -Toffre has gone further and ias forbidden the sale of all spirituous iouors in the entire war zone From J t will be seen that the tempe.in France ,s only 1 L m and vet when one remem--1 tV.t" Vn 'o the outbreak of the ? ti" l ; auor interests-had practiv:, : jniifnitfl control, that no reform n of the mildest type, m '; n \ . , va ., .1 through the Parha- „•"* the o"» -ramme of the tomperrn"ni i j

ance forces which will probably be carried through before the end of the war, makes a long step in advance. Germany.—Again quoting from the World's Outlook, we are told that " the past fifteen years and particularly the past five years, havo witnessed a greatawakening in Germany to the evils of intemperance. But she has doubled, nay, trebled her efforts against it since the Great War. At the opening of a new Naval Academy on November 21st, 1910, the Kaiser in a remarkable speech, said: The next war, the next naval encounter, will require of you sound nerves. These are undermined by alcohol endangered from youth up by its use. You will see lmrrible devastation and all kinds of pictures. Then the word will be strong nerves and cool heads. The nation which drinks the least alcoTiol will be the winner, and that gentlemen should be you." The temperance party in Germany distributed this address among 164 regiments in the Army. Since then other documents of similar importance have been circulated, stating that there :s no justification for calling beer "liquid bread," and that a glass of beer costing 25 pfennigs has no more :iou:'K!iment than a piece of cheese costing one pfennig. Five years ago the Krupp's forbad the sale of beer in their steel works and opened milk booths, but now the cause of temperance in the city of the Krupps has been further advanced by an order of the Seventeenth Army Corp at Munster, forbidding the sale of whisky at bars on Sundays, Mondays and legal holidays, and permitting it on week days onlv from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m., and since Ist August, 1914, it is reported that the Federal Council of Germany has granted full power to each of '.hi States within the Confederation to handle their liquor traffic as it pleases. Said the Kaiser, "If my people stand for temperance principles they will be raised morally.'' Though these same people at the present t'me are our cruel fofis, we " White R.ibboners,' with all our hearts, hop'; that their Army and Navy will adopt these temperance principles, and be so mora''*" raised as to know now to treat women and little children in time of war. Canada.—lt is encouraging to know that the fight against liquor in Canada is forging ahead. The Province of Ontario has over 800 municipalities, over 400 are under local prohibition. On Ist November, 1915, a new law came into force closing all remaining bars and saloons at 8 o'clock. This further restriction will, it is expected, speedily lead to total prohibition. Tho military laws are very strict. No soldiers are allowed to be billeted where drink is sold, none was allowed upon a recent trek of ninety miles from Niagara to Toronto. None is allowed in nuntnrv mess, armoury or canteen. The shops are forbidden to sell it to men in khaki, that is, iu bottles. I know a vote was to havo been taken on tha drink question in British Columbia in January last, but ro far I failed to j,et trio results. In Manitoba a siinilar measure will go to the people this month. New Brunswick has banished it from nine of its twelve counties. Novia Scotia has had no bars, except in Halifax City for a number of years. Quebec Province has 77 pe* cent, of its municipalities under .prohibition, and Prince Edward Island is "dry." Let us hope that when the next election come in, John Barleycorn will go out for all time. America.—lt is good to remember that one-half of the entire population of America numbering one hundred and ten millions uf people aro now Jiving under a no-license law. The nation is now preparing to wage one of the most progressive civil battles tor lruedcn frotn the slavery of the licensed saloons. This campaign is no other than to overthrow the liquor element in the United Suites, and the Temperance Party contemplate making a nation-wide effort this year, and will seek to get elected to both the House of Representatives nnd tft the United States Senate, members who will at once pass a national law that will straightway free their land of all liquor troubles.

The Scandinavians, once (she hardest drinkers in the world, are turning toward prohibition and doing it by majority vote. Remarkable progress has been made in Not way and Sweden, and in Denmark popular votes taken from IW7 to i9IJ have resulted in majorities for the abolition of the traffic. Ntew Zealand.— Turning from the world progress to our own land, I must confess the condition of things is disappointing. Time wa s when we rejoiced to think we led tho world in the fight against alcohol. Unhappily for New Zealand, we tear that day is now but a memory, j.nd that since last election we have been merely marking time, though our own organisation has not been resting on its oars. While Parliament was in session we sent, a petition to the House praying that in view of thu example set by the King, alcoholic liquors should be banished from Bellamy's during the course of tho war. Wo also petitioned the House asking that hotel bars should be closed from 6 p.m. to S a.m. daily, and at 1 p.m. on tho weekly half-holi-day. But though the members, when discussing the petition, confessed that some drastic measuicis were necessary, no action was taken, the National Government failing to protect their people from a traffic which is inherently vicious and evil. Our drink bill for 1914, publishing in June last, amounts to £4,246,357, which works out at an average of about £3 13s. lid. per head of the population. In this connection, 1 cannot do better than quote from the Alliance statement. "The Minister of Defence speaking at Wellington on May 31st, said that our last estimate of nar expenditure was £300,000 a month; this equals £3,600,000 a year. Our expenditure upon mtox.cating drink would pay the whole of this expenditure on the war, and provide a pension of L'2 per week for soldiers in addition." I think it was Mr. A. S. Adams who said: "If the people could be ]>ersuaded to pass a self-denying ordinance and abstain during the war. they could devote to patriotic purposes the sum of £4,'24G,OOH raved, and would not only not feel the expense, but would be richer at the end of the war." The money thus saved paid into a common fund, would provide for all our expenditure in the war, and leave 1'6<)0,000 to be devoted to the relief of suffering in Belgium, Poland, Serlihi and other distressed countries. Although this could be done, I am afraid there is nut likely to he any decrease, for in HUI the number of persons arrested for drunkenness amounted to 13,1*9, much the largest in the history of the Dominion. In 1915, during the first six months of the year. 6.430 persons were arrested for drunkenness. And the

"Otago Daily Times" on loth February of this year, reported that in one of the larger towns of Otago no fewer than 64 hogsheads of beer were consumed in a period of four weeks. As a result of this extensive use of liquor the police returns for the town show that there are already 20 convictions for drunkenness this year, as against 70 for the whole of 1915. I yield to no one in my admiration of the Britisli soldier. Compare him with those of other nations, and you at once see how splendidly he holds his own, and if we want our fill of pride in our own men, we have only to turn up the Press records and read of their undaunted courage at Gallipoli, and how they exceeded the expectation of the whole British Empire in their willingness to lay down their lives for their King and country. And yet there is a danger of this splendid manhood, in many eases, being spoiled through indulgence in liquor. In the light of these facts, should not something be done to protect the soldier from the people who persist :n treating them? If "treating" soldiers ?an be prohibited in England, Canada and other places, surely it can be prohibited in New Zealand. Medical testimonies prove that men whose bodies are sodden with alcohol have small chances of recovery from the ghastly wounds caused by the explosions of shrapnei. The nations acknowledge that it is efficiency that is wanted in the war: the alcoholic soldier will always be lacking in that quality, therefore. for the general good of our defenders " treating" should be made a punishable offence. Temperance Teaching in Schools. — We are glad to know that we have in the Hon. J. A. Hanan a Minister of Education who has decided that temperance charts must be given a prominent place on the walls of the State schools, and that they must be regularly used, particularly in the upper classes, in connection with lessons on the economic, moral, and physical aspects of intemperance. AVe have always worked for this instruction to be given to our children. We know that ignorance is the parent of a great deal of vice, and believe that hundreds would lie saved from intoxication if they knew the physiological effect of alcohol, and the school is certainly the place to learn this. The State does well to fortify the young mind agianst perils to which lack of knowledge so readily exposes them. The Maoris. —In October last I saw in the Press a brief report from the District Health Officer, including li s remarks upon the sly-grog selling that goes on among the natives in prohibited districts. He tells how at every funeral tangi or entertainment of any kind the majority are drunk. The ap-

CHATTY NEIGHBOUR : " I supposo you don't allow any war arguments among vour boarders." BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPER: "Oh, yes. You see, our biggest eater gets so interested that he forgets to eat, and our next biggest eater gets so mad that he leaves before the meal is half over." (From "Tit Bits. ')

palling part of it is that women, and even children, drink as freely as tho men. Teachers testify to the fact that school children are often intoxicated after a tangi. One small child of about five years of age was seen by a teacher to be drunk and carrying a bottle of liquor. This sort of indulgence must be injurious to their health, and if allowed to continue, one wonders what tho future of the natives will be. We are told that pakeha.s make quite a big living by selling dr;nk at twice its value among tho Maoris. We have heard similar statements before, and find it particularly galling to know that the law is not able to secure these diabolic offenders and pun sh them accordingly. That the natives are exposed to these temptations makes it all the more necessary for us to have a representative working among them.