The Daily News. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 1, 1901. INTERVIEW WITH MR. JOHN G. WOOLLEY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 221, 1 October 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 1, 1901. INTERVIEW WITH MR. JOHN G. WOOLLEY.

Bbforh leaving New Zealand Mr Woolley, the American jurist and political], wbo lately visited New Plymouth, was interviewed in Dnnedin by a reporter of the Dunedin Star, and the published report of the interview, which was very interesting, reads thus Will you please tell me tha object of your visit to New Zealand?— From a personal standpoint the object of my trip abroad at all was rest. I was very tired from excessive work, and needed a vacation, and I had for a long time been anxious to see New Zealand, and look into the condition of the young reforms you have started here. That is why I came. Then New Zealand is not unknown in the States J—Your colony is certainly not unknown to prohibitionists and reformers. It is well known to them. I came primarily to study the reforms you have started here, and in the second place to meet the workers of the prohibition party. . It was in America that prohibition first became a peached doctrine. I refer to the Maine Liquor Law. Will yon kindly torn yourself loose on that subject, and »ay what the results have been ?—Yes, with pleasure. The Maine Liquor Law was enacted 60 years ago. Thepeopleof the State of Maine enacted a prohibitory law, which with some slight temporary interruptions has continued in force until this time. After it had been in force for about thirty years there was the usual criticism of it; that it worked ill, failed to suppress the liquor traffic, and did not produce any revenue. These criticisms were so urged as to result in the resubmission of the question to the people of the Btate as to whether the prohibitory law should be continued or repealed in favour of a license law. The response of the people was overwhelmingly in favour of prohibition. Since that time there has been no question in the State of Maine as to the repealing of that law; but the criticisms of it have continued. What form do these criticisms take I—lt is claimed that the Maine Liquor Law is poorly enforced: it is even claimed by some that it results in no diminution of the quantity of liquor sold. It is to be noted, however, that these claims are made by strong friends of the liquor traffic, and they are made, as a rule, with a distinct purpose of discrediting the law, so as to bring about a return of the license system. The whole liquor fraternity in Maine claim that the law is a failure—that as much liquor is sold and used as there woold be onder a licensing system. And what is the reply to these assertions ? —We say that they are palpably dishonest because if the law did not interfere with the sale of liquor these present objectors would 1 favour it rather than oppose it. I Are there no other objectors!— Yes, there are. The claim that the law is a failure isj also made by many persons who are not friendly to the liquor traffic. But in such! cases the objections are founded, I think, in. gross ignorance or prejudice. The law is disappointing in the matter of enforcement, especially in the seabeard cities and the larger factory towns; but in the rural districts the traffic has been practically suppressed, while in the cities it has been driven into corners and disreputable places and prevented from offering the allurements which bo abound in the licensed and recognised drink shops of other cities. At the worst it is enforced better than the restrictive feature of the licensing laws in other cities. The whole subject of enforcement of a law like this, which interferes somewhat with what is caller, personal liberty, is in the nature of the case difficult, especially in prohibition cities that are surrounded by those which hold to the licensing system; the more so because in the United States the government is one of parties—political parties—and the officials are first of jail partisans, Naturally they hesitate to I enforce the law strictly, since by so doing they incur the hostility of the liquor trade. Another grave difficulty with us is that the | Federal Government, while holding that the liquor traffic is a matter entirely under the control of the police power of the States- respectively, yet recognise in all the Stttes alike the wholesale and retail liquor dealers

arfcifieates in prohibitory States ia all rejects as in licensing States; so that a lan who proposes to become a criminal in he State of Maine by engaging in the iquor business is dealt with by the Federal rovernment with respect to that business s if he were an honest and law-abiding itizen. This teach-.a disrespect of the State aw by its own citizens, and makes an adlitional hindrance to enforcement. Outside of Maine, what States favour i )rohibition ?—We have prohibitory laws in Sew Hempshire, Vermont and Kansas, and j partial prohibition in sundry other States, j Then Maine's example has not been with- j Jut its value afield I—The example of Mnine jave a gre.it impetus to the prohibition' movement at the first, and a wave of prohibitory sentiment was sweeping over the United States, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, and the prohibitory law and; the enforcement of it and tlie temperance agitation were all swamped in the war, fever North and South. At the end of the war the various temperance societies and the enforcement leagues had fallen to pieces in large measure, and with the return of the soldiers to their homes the question of reconstruction succeeded, and partisan and sectional feeling ran high, so tfiat many of the States that had taken a somewhat advanced position against the liquor traffic fell back into the clutches of it, and the whole temperance reform had to be bnilt up anew. Meantime the handicap of extreme partisanism had been fastened upon the country, and we are only just now beginning to loosen its hold. What has the Maine experience taught ? Has it led temperance reforms to look away from prohibition in their search for relief? —No. The Maine experience lias confirmed the temperance workers of America, in spite of all disappointments and difficulties, in the belief that the only solu tion of the liquor question ia prohibition of the traffic. With your knowledge of what has taken place in America, d.i you counsel prohibition for New Zealand ?—I do. Let me say right here that the discouragement we have encountered in the States will be absent in a large measure from your problem in New Zealand. You have a compact and homogeneous people; you are comparatively free from party strife; yours is distinctly a Government of the people. As distinguished, you mean, from the government of political parties that you have said goes on in America I—Exactly; and you are remote from interfering influences. Ton can absolutely control the liquor traffic at your ports.

What can America teach us about State control?—A good deal. The experiment has been tried in South Carolina. This, one of our oldest States, was on the eve of adopting prohibition when the Democratic politicians of that State, in order to defeat prohibition, sprang a State control scheme, which has now been in operation for several year, with the Bffect of producing a very handsome revenue to the Siate and increasing drunkenness and all the evils that come after it.

To what extent has drunkenness increased?—l am not prepared with figures, but will say that it is a visible increase, and also that there has at the same time been plainly an increase in the corruption of the public service. In that State a committee appointed by the Legislature buys the liquor wholesale, and has on hand at a given time, say, half a million dollars' worth of liquor, which is kept in a storehouse ready to be distributed by the State drink shops which are operated by the public servants for the benefit of the State treasury. Under this system sly grog-selling has been diminished little, if at all, and the experiment, while very costly in regard to moral character, has proven a strong object-lesson in favour of total Prohibition.

Is it the Gothenburg system, or related to it ?—lt is not the Gothenburg system. Under the Gothenburg system only spirits are dealt with. The South Carolina system is not State control only; it is State ownership. There are, of course, restrictions as to the sale!— Yes, there are some restrictions, but for the moment they are out of my mind. 1 am not quite clear about it, but my recollection is that in South Oarolina there are the usual restrictions against selling to drunkards and minors, and I think there can be no saleß of liquor to be drunk on the premises. But these restrictions are notoriously violated, as in the public-house that is tinder the licensing system. So you advise us not to have State control ?—I advise yon strongly, as a people who love their land and wish to build up a strooe and great country, to have nothing to do with it. It will not bear investigation at all. Having a great mixed population, divided into many States, it might be justifiable for us to allow ourselves to be driven intoßfcate control, the Gothenburg system, and the like, on our way to prohibition, because of the tremendous difficulties in the way of reform. But in New Zealand, where the problem is so very much less Comdex, by reason of the things we have already touched upon, you would not be jnstiiiod, it seems to me—those of you who desire the prevention of the evils arising out of the liquor traffic—it) standing for anything shot of total prohibition. And do you think, from what you have seen o£ New Zealand, that the temperance workers here are on the right track, or should they alter their plans I—From what little 1 have seen I think you are on the risnht track, ,and I have no suggestions to offer. You have the law on your Statute Book, and all that is needed is to screw your good people up to the point of enforcing their oonvicttons at the triennial elections.