Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7,1909. STATE GOVERNMENT VERSUS LIQUOR RING GOVERNMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4472, 7 October 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7,1909. STATE GOVERNMENT VERSUS LIQUOR RING GOVERNMENT.

This above all—to thine own eelfbe true, ind it must follow as the night the day Thou oanst not then be false $6 any man Shakespeare.

Otjb. local contemporary The Te Aroha Mail, which has quite recently estimated its advertising columns as being worth only four pence per inch to the Te Aroha Borough Council, advertised our article on “True and Spurious Liberalism,” free of charge in its issue of the 2nd instant. One of the principles we alluded to was: “The liberty of each, limited only by the like liberty of all.” Herbert Spencer the great philosopher and champion of liberty in the Nineteenth Century was quoted by us as saying that: “ Modem Liberals are becoming mischievous because they have lost sight of the truth that in past times Liberalism habitually stood for individual freedom versus State coercion.”J, Our contemporary appears to think that because we support Local Option, we therefore cannot consistently support State coercion of any kind. The un reasonable absurdity of the “ Mail’s ” contention will be apparent to all who know what local Option is. It is a legal right wrung from the Legislature of New Zealand by the people giving threefifths of the voters in their district the right to say whether the liquor traffic shall be carried on there or no. In other words, it gives the people the right to decide whether the majority shall rule or whether the minority shall. It gives the community power to decide whether a minority of self seeking liquor sellers and some drinkers, shall coerce the majority into submission to the soul-destroying and home-life destroying liquor traffic, or whether the will of the majority, expressed through the ballot box, shall prevail in ridding itself of the traffic. Needless to say we uphold the right of the majority in this matter.

It is politically and ethically just and uecessary that a majority should be able, in self-defence, to exclude from its district a traffic universally found to be subversive of law and order, family welfare, and the destroyer of the savings of all victims who get caught in its coils. Why is it that broken hearted wives and neglected children have to take out prohibition orders against husbands and fathers who persist in drinking away their lives, their savings and regulations ? It is because the liquor traffic is unlike every other traffic under the sun. Nobody wants prohibition against drapers, butchers, bakers and grocers; but the law of the land admits the necessity for protection against the liquor traffic. The “ Mail ” thinks such protection unjustifiable. We said that Liberalism “ claims that the sole end for which mankind are warranted individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protec-tion,.” repeat that. We stand by it as aft pthipal principle: but the “ Mail ” would gepfiye iho people of that right of self-defence. Option is self-defence. All civilised countries have been driven to selfprotection against the liquor traffic, and fo legislatively coerce liquor sellers as no otlfep graders are coerced. For instanp w , ffyo very houses are called public houses aipj. tfye Jfeepers of them are interfered with in ways for the public good. Au inspecr tor of police may enter the public houses gnd pipoi't to Licensing Committees on the stajte of pfyo roomg, floors, drains, and pr/sn)Ws. fhp police report on the conduct of fyo fyqsjqess and the character of the persons frequenting the houses. The publicans must close their bars on election days, must provide lodgings and stabling when required, and they must receive dp»d bodies into their premises wneft there i? j} o morgue within easy distance. ' Tfyey obliged also to provide certain private .copvenieifCftjj fftr fhe general public ; hence we say they gre coerced as no other traders are.

Why P Because world-wide experience has dictated the necessity for it, and New Zealand has gone so far as tq inrpljibit the sale 6i intoxicants in the‘‘King Oojjptry,” and in certain or the districts where thie pporTe arose in selfdefence. The “ Mail f ” <jalts toqercion. Of course it is ; but it is coercion when the Te Aroha Borough Council makes people pay their rates and clean their back yards so that they shall not become fever beds. The people have t.o chose between coerced by Parliament, op py the liquor The “ Mail ” seen,is tp want' to gat fop the Ijquor carte blanche to dp as jt likes according fo its own sweet will free from state coercion. H,enco the people haye to cftoQSfi Government by ti)e State pr Government by a liquor ring. If (they permit the trafficers in intoxicating liquor* to fflch from them the liberty that has cost so much, they will become slaves of a tyranny cruel as the worst Eastern despotism,.