THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1918, Page 7

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

To the Editor. Sir, —Your leading articla in Saturday's issue is evidently in advocacy of what is called State Control, and thus it is a defence of the liquor trade; not, I know, a defence of the trade as it is hut as you imagine it might be. It is only a delusion, Sir, to think that what is bad and therefore wrong, can bo made good and right by merely changing hands and pockets. We know, altering your words a little bit, that "the trade, wrongly, has been allowed to grow up under the sanction of the legislature," and seeing that we can find no real reason for continuing in that wrong course, we ought to just "right-about-face," and, instead of legalising another form of the evil trade, abolish it altogether. Our forefathers, when they tried to regulate the thing, did not know—at least only a few wise ones among them knew—that the intoxicating drink was always injurious. Hero I might quote Holy Writ, where it says: "Tho times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent," and tTy a better way of dealing with the trade—aibolisli it. The danger is that people only see a part of the mischief wrought by drink; they see the glaring evils when there are drunken riots, such as we had in Wellington a few weeks ago when a transport arrived with returned soldiers, but they fail to see the damage done to the man who is called a moderate drinker. However, I suppose we cannot help that: if ipeople do not want to see they can't see. There, is in the introduction of a second issue of! £tate Control a very great danger. If that system were adopted it at once puts the gtamp of Government approval on drinking; and hence a Govenuneat toleration of drunkenness—for it is drunkenness long before the victim falls into the gutter, or into the hands of the police. It is fatuous to imagine that tho State barman "will bo so veyy cautious and so discreet that no one will get what i s popularly called "too much." Then tod, when the question is before the electors every liquor dealer will vote for State Control, it would give him a prospect of entering -the Civil Service asa manager or barman and all the advantages belonging to Government employment. It would also bo a iplace of refuge for the voter who sees that there is harm done by the drink, and yet he likes it. This will be to him a great opportunity of doing something for, what Ee calls, the cause of temperance—commonsense temperance—and also to retain the drink for his own moderate u!e.— . I am, etc.,

GJB.M.