A STUDY OF MASSACHUSETTS NO-LICENCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43083, 18 April 1907, Page 1

A STUDY OF MASSACHUSETTS NO-LICENCE.

BY CHAS. H., ROBERTS, M.P. - The groth in wealth. . The periodical valuation or assessment of the cities in i Massachusetts enables the first to be tested; and the increase 9 in wealth is striking enough. The valuation , of Cambridge : fell from 66,625015 dols. in 1875, to 55,346,555d015. in 1875, in 1886 it adopted NoLicence, and in 1905 the valuation had risen to 103,845,100 dols. In the ten years before No-Licence the valuation fell 16.9 per cent in the twenty years afterwards s it rose 87,6 per cent. The valuation of Somerville fell between 1875 and 1885 from 31,317,000 dols, to 24,878,400 dollars or 25.8 per cent. But, haveng adopted .the plan of No-Licence in 1882, in the next twenty vears it increased to 59.146,600, dols. a v rise of 13 7,. 7 per cent. Quincy adopted No-Licence in 1882., Between 1875 and 1885 its valuation rose from 7,314,025 dols* lo 8,489,465, dols. or 16 per cent. In the next 20 Jyears there was a rise of 201.2 per cent;" to 25, 575,990 dollars. Other instances could be quoted, and, without attempting to assert that the growth in wealth is solely due to the licensing policy of these cities, it is certainly recognised as one of the causes of the advance. The savings tanks deposits tell the same ale; the figures of the savings )anks throughout the State are offiicially published each year. OTHER TESTS : DEATH-RATES'AND | SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

It is not too much to say that the removal of au everpresent temptation lifts the communities that have Mho wisdom to adopt the plaa on to a higher plane of living. The improvement is clearly visible to those who have eyes to see in the mere aspect of the Nos Licence districts. There are communites is our own country which have stamped upon them ' ihe peculiar squalor and degradation which are the sign-manual of the liquor traffic as legibly as you can read iu some men’s faces the evident tokens of alcoholic poisoning. The deterioration shows 1 itself more clearly perhaps in Masschusetts, as, except for public buildings or premises, the houses are mo.-tly of wood, and if .they are perhaps orgiually cheaper v -Jo build

than houses of brick or stone they require larger outlay in repairs. In the NosLicence districts, howerever, these wooden houses, standing on. their smooth grass lawn plots, with their s. nse of i’n lividual ownership, present a cheerful' and attractive, and at their best a beautiful,' appearance. Shaded by elm or maple, they sacrifice their .privacy and trust themselves to the general community with out the disfiguring pro*, tectiou of boundary fences. These No-Licence _communities wear all the air of having won their deliverance. There are other ways in which the superiority of the Nu-Lieenca communities in social well-being is demonstrable. Two points occurred to me as possible indirect tests: the death-rates of the cities and the figures of the average scnool attendance. It is needless to show how in

both points the influence of the liquor traffic is traceable. In this State average school attendance is calculated on the total number of children aged between five and fifteen in the city ; not as in England, on the : ' estimated number of 'working class children. I found that iu the No-Licence ■ cities the adverage attendance was 85.84 percent, in the licensed oitiejs 71,45, •