SIR ROBERT STOUT’S VIEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, 9 April 1919, Page 4

SIR ROBERT STOUT’S VIEWS.

ABOLITION OIMJQUOR FAVOUR HD

OVER BIRD OF CRIME DIRECTLY DUE TO LIQUOR. / '

(Published by Arrangement.)

The secretary of the New Zealand Alliance called on Sir Robert Stout to ask if he would make auy pronouncement on the use made by the “Mod-' crates” of some past speeches of his. Sir Robert said: “I, have hitherto thought it better not to even have my name on the electoral roll, though I understand the judges in the Home’ Country and America cost their votes’ at elections. I do not think, however; that I should allow any political or .other party to misrepresent, my position on what is a moral question. I have held, for over 50 years, the opinion that it is the right and duty of the people to control the sale of alcohol, and to prohibit the sale, if they so choose. As I said in 187 Cin Parliament, so I repeat now, once you admit. that the sale of alcohol must be. licensed then you cannot stop at the power (being granted to the people, to pervont all sale. My view, and this can be soon in New Zealand Hansard, volume 20, pages 475 to 478, also volume 800, pages 379-381. I also wrote an article in the New Zealand magazine, published in 1877, entitled ‘lntemperance and Licensing,’ and I said in that article, ‘What then is left after dealing with objections to local option?. Does not the question after all come to this: Will the State interfere, or will it behold thousands of its people being sacrificed lost the liberty of the survivors is interfered with? This can be seen in my article, pages 70-83, in the New Zealand Magazine, 1877.

“This question of license is a moral question, and is not a political, party, or religious question, and I doubt if ever in New Zealand we have been so stirred without regard to nationality sectional polities, or creeds.

“In ray opinion, the quotation that has been published from by article to the “Timaru Herald’’ 1914) might mislead people, as it was "taken from its sotting. I was not dealing with the right of the State to maintain its existence, and to maintain the health of the people. I believe it is the duty of the State to even insist on conscription if it is necessary for the defence of the nation, and I also believe that the State cannot allow poisons to be sold at the will of any person. It must secure the health of*the people, and this licensing question is a question of health and of morality, and- if wc find anything interfering with the health of the people or with them, cither physically or morally,, it is-the duty of the State to interfere and to preserve the nation from destruction.

“Personal liberty must give way to the State.

“I understand it has been stated that -I am opposed to compensation. I opposed the idea of compensation in speeches in Parliament from 1876 down wards, and have always 1 opposed it, because, in my opinion, the liquor people, the vendors of liquor, have uo right to compensation. That is for the people to determine. Our Parliament, by its Licensing Act, 1910, gave compensation, for if national prohibition wore carried, licenses were to continue for four and a-half years. That would mean a waste of, perhaps, eighteen millions of money. The proposed compensation was put in to prevent the trade being ended suddenly, whereas the four and a-half millions is proposed with agjView to ending the trade immediately, or pay eighteen millions, spread over four years, and that is the question people have to determine. It is not for me to indicate to any electors. Any man of ordinary commonsense could only give one answer. If there were any chance of Parliament ■"'Tig away with compensation I think the people should insist on it, but that seems to be hopeless at present, seeing that Parliament has passed in its Licensing Act. this right to compensation. I think that was wrong, but that is the law, .and, therefore, the question ■was: 'Will you get rid of the traffic by four and a-half millions, or will you get rid of the traffic by giving four and a-half year’s license?’ and that was the only question which Parliament would consider.

“The reason I have taken a keen interest in the liquor question has been what I have seen in my stay in New Zealand —now, over fifty-five years. I know what has happened to many, of the boys who were under me at school. I was a teacher in the years T 4 to ’Q7. Many of my brightest boys have fallen in the race of life through intoxicants. Many men who would have been at glory to New Zealand have passed away from the same .causp. I know from my experience as a lawyer and a judge tha-t at least one-third of the criminals directly, and many more indirectly, found themselves in gaols from indulgence in intoxicating liquor, I said, further, in my article ip ‘intemperance and License,’ in 1577, what eminent doctors have said in reference to the injury of alcohol to healthy people, and the medical opin-

ion in that respect has ffivn greatly increased during the past forty-two years. I have always been a total abstainer, and have always pointed out to our people the injury that alcohol docs to our new ration.”- .