SO-CALLED “DISINTERESTED” MANAGEMENT OF THE LIQUOR TEAFFIC

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43221, 29 August 1907, Page 1

SO-CALLED “DISINTERESTED” MANAGEMENT OF THE LIQUOR TEAFFIC

By Eev- G. Armstrong Bennetts B.A.

(Continued from last issue.) The more refined and oesthe- , tic you make the environment ; of the wine-cup, the more ef- | fectually do you provide for the concealment Of the serpent which lies coiled within it. As the re*i{J suit of the passing of a measure of public management, lean see . rising all over this country a host of beautiful municipal )| drink palaces which will be ; highly respectable places of public resort, and which, because- . of their position as public institutions, will draw into the drink vortex numbers of the;" people who would at present disdain to be classed amongst the habitues of the publicdiouse. ; This scheme is like the grocer’s licence in that it is well ;inean f , and I have no doubt that, if carried, its results will be ; similar. By »increasing the_ facilities for respectable drink- -- ing it will multiply the'evil. IT WILL NOT END BUT INCREASE / POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES. Further, our greatest difi%y culty is not with the retailer, g but with the millionaire brewer and distiller. It has been asserted that the establishment of a scheme of public /management-'-'' would remove the liquor ques - ; tion from the sphere of polities. -:; I believe that the political diflujij culty would be increased thousandfold, because it wotflH become the business of who were engaged in the facture of liquor, to strain every nerve to dominate the municipalities so as to secure a lucrative market for their wares. If the method of public manage* ment is to be adopted, it should begin with the nationalisation of the production,' and- the whole business should be convert, d info a national monoply. Thu position of our Indian Opium Monoply shows how mischievous would be the result of this-, f )v in the position of this opium question we see how this nation is held back from the renunciation of a great iniquity by revenue considerations. The creation of a national liquor monoply would weld a chain which would bind the nation more closely than ever to greatest curse. The present dependence of the revenue upon the traffic is a sufficiently great obstacle to progress without our seeking to increase the mischief by bringing all the profits into the national exchequer. THE TEMPERANCE PEOPLE WILL NEVER WORK . THE SCHEME. Those who think that the liquor traffic could be best managed by putting it into the hands of Temperance reformer * are quite in error. How any real Temperance man' consent to give his time and attention to the management of a liquor-selling concern ? If for a while some such should bo drawn by- the plausible cry for seeking to regulate vice into such an equivocal position, one of two issues would eventuate,, ; They would soon abandon the thing in disgust,;;or they Would be corrupted The fact is that M the principle jpvolvc.d in (his question is the same as that which was at ..the root of the Contagions D Leases Acts, and the similar enactments for the regulation of vice. The prin* ciplc is this: “ The -Devil is : here- We cannot get rid of him* Instead, therefore, of attacking ; him, let us try to dress- him up/ and make him a respectable and useful member of society.” . (To be contintiecL)