QUESTIONS FOR WOMEN VOTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1922, Page 6

QUESTIONS FOR WOMEN VOTERS.

A SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY. In America the women were foremost in supporting Prohibition, hoping thereby to restrain erring sons and husbands. Mrs. (Elizabeth Marbury, a prominent New Yorker, in the Chicago Herald of May 22nd last, wrote that “they will be the first to demand its repeal. Temperate mothers will wipe out the Eighteenth Amendment (the ‘diy’ law). It has taken the saloon from the corner and smeared ilt in every dance hall and restaurant.” Do the women of this country realise that if Prohibition is carried paid spies may enter their homes and pry round their kitchens to see that they have been making “home brew’? For the Prohibition law already on the Statute Book provides that “It shall be unlawful to manufacture intoxicating liquor of any description.” That bars the making of wine or beer for your own consumption.

Then the revenue of this country will be short to the tune of £2.500,000 annually. As there is no other luxury in such wide use as alcoholic beverages, this decreased revenue will have to be made up by extra taxation on the necessities of life. For instance, if it is put on tea, then tea will cost 8s 6d per pound. If on sugar, then you will have to pay lOd a pound for sugar, which means that jam, cakes, biscuits, etc., will also be doubled in price. Another (thing. Do women wish to throw thousands more out of employment? And would they like to have their men-folk secretly drinking vile concoctions instead of a glass of good, wholesome liquor now and again ? These are questions that all women electors should ponder seriously before going to the polls. Having done so, they will assuredly Vote Continuance. 57