ALCOHOLOGY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 87, 3 October 1911, Page 6

ALCOHOLOGY

LIBERTY FOR WHAT? (Published by Arrangement). Liberty is always the cry raised by those who have privileges or monopolies which tlie people deem unjust and seekto abolish. The House of Lords asked for liberty to do as they liked with the Bills laid before their ilouse; the people thought otherwise'; and asked that they should have the liberty. The people won; and so it is ever, for

" RIGHT THE DAY MUST WIN." The liquor dealers are now raising the cry of liberty and seek thereby to delude those who have surrendered their ! liberty in many cases to an unnatural i iind evil habit. At present the retail • liquor dealers have liberty during eer- ! lain hours to sell liquor to anv one un- . til he is drunk; then he inust'stop sell--1 ing and turn the drinker out. But as fur liberty, the Trad.O has never had ' that. Centuries afro our ancestors saw ; that it would not do to allow the liberty to liquor selling which they allowed to other trades: and for al! these centuries they have been aiming at perfecting the restrictions on the liberty of the Trade. It is, then, absurd for them to talk ; about liberty for their trade. Further, if if full liberty were granted to the retail . I liquor trade, and we had free trade in i intoxicants, would the licensed victuali J lers be pleased? Oh, no! that would be j as bad as prohibition, for their monopoly, for which they are now fighting, would be gone. The Trade wants liberty in places—their places—for certain persons; to put it baldly, LIBERTY TO MAKE MEN DRUNK. liut perhaps the Trade is pleading for liberty for their customers—liberty for these customers to get the intoxicating drinks they crave for. The question of curtailing that liberty turns on another question what is for the general public advantage? If the continuance of that liberty be for the general welfare it must not be interfered with; if it be injurious to the community, then it must be curtailed even to the point of absolute prohibition. Now no one over openly says that the liquor trade is a public benefit. Most drinkers protest they do not drink much, that no one ever saw them drunk, that they could do without it; but then they say that the question of whether they drink or not is their business. Not so fast, friends. What a man does is very often somebody else's business as well*as the business of the actor. Surely if a man has liberty about anything St is about whether he will remain alive or notand yet even in this a man's liberty is taken from him. There are now 'two ! < (perhaps more) persons in hospitals suf- 1 feung from .self-inflicted injuries evident ly with the intention of suicide. Now when they recover, as they are said to be likely to do, they will be brought before the Magistrate and charged with an offence—attempted suicide. It may be noted, by the way, that in one of these cases, as reported in the "Daily 1 News" of Saturday, the attempt was the result of a drinking bout: in the other case nothing has been disclosed as to the of the individual. Enough, however, is known in a general way that drinkers are more apt to attempt suicide than teetotallers If then a man may not put an end to his lite by poison obviously taken, why should he be allowed to injure his health shoiten his life, starve his family, and annoy his neighbors by getting drunk? And so long as drink is sold men mil get drunk. No one can deny that. There is moreover, another aspect of this liberty to drink. Drink means inefficiency j disease, accident, expense to the State' and, for the man who wastes his means over it and comes to poverty, it also means charitable aid and a ' pensioa Now, if the State says, as it does, to all its qualified subjects, that there is for everyone a free school, a free hospital an old-age pension and charitable aid' jf needed, then the State is quite at liberty to say that personal habits which make for inefficiency disease, elc shall be abolished. They would 'be i' restriction of individual liberty for the purpose of securing to the whole community a greater liberty—the liberty to walk the streets without being annoyed bv drunken men, to ride hi a coach without the danger of a drunken (or partly drunken) driver, to have the pub- ' lie funds expended for some other purpose than merely to clear up the mess in many ways 'that results from the ' hquor trade. Yes: we ask for liberty to do every right and proper thing that does not injure the community; every- ' one who asks for any liberty that in- ' 1 fringes on the rights and liberties of 1 others asks for what he will not get I when the people come to see things aright. The liquor trade is injurious to the community, and is therefore not a proper subject "for liberty.