MORE DRINKING

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 452, 8 June 1937, Page 6

MORE DRINKING

Effect Of Shorter Week

Press Association —Copyright. Napier, June 7.

That drinking in New Zealand had increased sharply as a result of the introduction of the shorter working week and that he had been filled with “shame and horror” by what he had seen at Napier, Hastings and other towns was the statement made by the chairman of, the Hawke’s Bay County Council, Mr F. B. Logan, at to-day’s meeting of the council. “Drinking in New Zealand has increased beyond all bounds during the past year,” he' said. “Others may have been afraid to draw attention to this matter, but I am going to say now that I am alarmed by the Question of whire a great deal of the increases in pay and sustenance money under the new conditions is going.

I sometimes come into the town on Saturday mornings, and it fills' iff® with shame and horror when I see where a great deal of that money is going. I do not blame the publicans, nor am I a prohibitionist, but I think that it is time that some person occupying an official position spoke. “Drinking in New Zealand has. increased beyond all bounds during the last year. One has only to go to Napier or Hastings, or any large town for that matter, 'to see the position for oneself.

“The week-end holiday was instituted to give men an opportunity of senjoying the leisure which they were given and of putting fresh vim into their bodies. It was expected that as a result of this move the next generation would be more virile and more healthy than the present. I cannot see that the next generation will be better than the present with this increase in drinking.”