SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1919, Page 8

SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

ABOLITION OF LIQUOR FAVORED. OVER THIRD OF CRIME DIRECTLY DUE TO LIQUOR. (Published by Arrangement.) 1 The secretary of the New Zealand Alliance called on Sir Robert Stout to ask if he would make any pronouncement on the use made by the '"Moderates" of some past speeches of his. "l'n my opinion, the quotation that has been published from my article to the Timaru Herald (1914) might mislead people, as it is taken from its setting. I was not dealing with the right of the State to maintain its existence, and to maintain the health of the peopleI believe it is the duty of the State to even insist on conscription if it is necessary for the defence of the nation, and I also believe that the State cannot allow poisons to he sold at the will of any person. It must secure the health of the people, and this licensing question is a question of health and of morality, and if we find anything interfering with the health of the people or with them, either physically or morally, it is the duty of the State to interfere and to preserve the nation from destruction. "Personal liberty must give way to the State. "Our Parliament, by its Licensing Act, IQIO, gave compensation, for if national prohibition were carried, licenses were to continue for four and a half yearsThat would mean a waste of perhaps eighteen millions of money. The proposed compensation was put in to prevent the trade being ended suddenly, whereas the four and a half millions is proposed with a view to ending the trade immediately, and it is for the people to say whether they will pay four nnd a half millions to end the sale Immediately, or pay 'eighteen millions spread over four years, and that is the question people have to determine. It is not for me to dictate to any electors. Any man of ordinary commonsense could only give one answer. "The reason I have taken a keen interest in tlie liquor question has been what I have seen in my stay in New Zealand—now over fifty-fiVe years. I know what has happened to many of the boy? who were under me at school. I was a teacher in the years '64 to '67. Many of my brightest boys have fallen in the race of life through intoxicantsMany men who would have been a glory to New Zealand have passed away from the same cause- I know from my experience as a lawyer and a Judge that at least one-third of the criminals directly, and many more indirectly, found themselves in gaols from indulgence in intoxicating liquor"