SOLDIERS AND DRINK.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1919, Page 3

SOLDIERS AND DRINK.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TRADE. A meeting in the interests of the National Efficiency Campaign was held in the Empire Theatre on Wednesday night, when the speakers wore all returned soldiers. There was a fair attendance. Captain Hartnell presided, and in introducing the speakers said the question of national efficiency was exercising the minds of the people of the whole world. Mr. Sim, the first speaker, referred to the general attitude of the soldiers ito the question at the time of the last poll taken, and assured the audience the T.loderate League, who were the only mouthpiece of the liquor trade, would not be able to hoodwink the men, most of whom were now back, as they had done on that occasion. COST OF THE TRAFFIC. Passing 011 to the cost of the liquor traflio to the country Mr. Sim said New Plymouth probably spent £40,000 per annum on liquor, and he asked what there was to show for it. The product of the trade was to be seen in the gaols, inebriate homes, asylums, and hospitals. He asked if the proposal to erect a police station at Moturoa looked like a progressive step for the community. In speaking of State control, he said the country already had State control, What the proposal of the Moderate League was meant State purchase Personally he did not believe the State, which was the people, wanted to purchase the liquor traffic. Wherever State control had been tried it had been a failure. The next speaker was Captain Hawkins, who set out his reasons for being against the liquor traffic. He said he had no quarrel with any man connected with the trade, but was right up against the business; because of its intolerance, its hypocrisy, its avarice and greed, and the cowards it made of men, and the wreck it made of the lives of women and little children and homes wherever it entered. He would fight it until it could find no safe place beneath the stars of the Southern Cross, and until he himself "went west." Captain Hawkins referred to the statements which lie called "lying,'' usually published just on the eve of a poll, by the trad 1. when there was jio opportunity to refute (hem, regarding prohibition in America. The rcTply to all of them now, however, was that America had gone drv from east to west. STATE CONTROL. The speaker then <:ealt with the revenue question and endeavored to show the audience that in reality the liquor business only collected the revenue derived from the sale of alcoholic drinks, ans that ;ti fact it was paid by the people. One-fifth of the money spent in liquor was all that went into the State coffers, the rest into the pockets of the brewers. Prohibition was a proposal to the people to keep for themoelves the whole of the money now spent on liquor. Captain Hawkins then said that although the vote was lost in April last, some advantages had conic to the cause of prohibition. Now, instead of having to wait 4.} years lor the effect of a prohibition vote it would come into force on the 30th of the June following the date of the pell. The | bare majority had been granted; and I the compensation issue had now been settled. He then dealt, with the real proposal [ of the State control advocates and said they propose;] that the people of New Zealand should pay «t .least £0.782,500 for that which was valued bv the Government Statistician, according to the Year Book, at £4,998,150. He also dealt with the matter of employment given by the liquor business and the rate of wages paid, over certain periods, the figures being taken from the official records, and showing that for the money invested the percentage of men employed and wages paid w r as very low. DRINK IN THE DOCKYARDS, The speaker then quoted from a report made to the Admiralty in the early stages of the war on the effects of excessive drinking by men employed in shipyards ami munition works, which was to the e fleet that men were actually doing less work than when the country was not at war, and that in some cases repair work 011 warships was so badly done that those who made the report believed it could not have been done by men who were not drunk. It was on the strength of that report that Mr. Llovd George tried to shut down on the drink trade, and that the King banished alcohol from his household. Captain Hawkins Anally denlt with the moral aspect of the question, and made a strong and eloquent appeal for a strong vote in favor of prohibition for the sake of the boys of to-day, to save them from becoming the victims of th? traffic in the future. Several questions were answered by both speakers, and at the conclusion votes of thanks were accorded them and a similar compliment paid to tlie chairman..