EMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 November 1922, Page 10

EMPLOYMENT.

INCREASED -UNDER NO LICENSE. The liquor traffic is trying to work up. a scare about unemployment that it professes to believe will follow prohibition. Well, here are some Tacts from Oamaru, where the same effort to work up an unemployment scare was made when Oamaru voted for No-'li-cense which took effect in 1907: It will be seen that- closing the bars resulted in greatly increased employment in this now prosperous town.

in same hotels with No-license 61 Here we have evidence that cannot be disproved. Sixty-one >no're people are earning their living in what were four hotels. The same things will happen all over the Dominion when National Prohibition is carried. More people employed means more wages, more spending, increase in business and consequently a further increase in employment. Did you ever find the liquor traffic doing anything to help the man who lost a job through drink? You will help the unemployed Iby striking out the two top lines. IT IS POSSIBLE. By two strokes of the pencil at the ballot box you can divert £12,000,000 now’ spent every year on drink into the channels of mqre wholesome trade, and the money so diverted will have higher velocity and a greater efficiency than it now has. But greater than all these considerations is the increased comfort, social and moral well-being which the diversion will mean to thousands of families in the Dominion. But directly or indirectly all will share, in the advantages of the increased national wellbeing, moral and economic, which will flow from the reform. The £12,000,000 is wasted not in one year only, but in every year. Set it free to go into useful channels, and your manufacturers, wholesalers an)d retailers will experience a much-needed expansion of trade. There will, as a natural consequence, be an increased demand for labour. There is nothing which the Government or the people of New Zealand could do in. the way of post-war reconstruction which would relieve the present slump more than the striking out of the two toj> lines on the licensing ballot paper. LIQUOR TRADE AND-OTHER TRADES COMPARED. Number Value of Wages of employ- paid. Year 1921. product. ees. £ Breweries and malthouses .. 1.463,090 1129 289,823 Furniture 1,238,000 2226 433.143 Woollen mills .. -1.333.000 2205 333,261 Boots and shoes 1,496.000 2286 402.552 Engineering .... 1,837,000 3388 6’66.075 PAID IN WAGES OUT OF EVERY £IOO OF ADDED VALUE PRODUCED.

MR. WILLIAM FERGUSON ON LIQUOR. (Formerly Engineer, Wellington Harbour Board, Chairman National Effieney Board.) Mr. William Ferguson took the chair at a meeting addressed iby Mr. W. E. (Pussyfoot) Johnson in Wellington on October 24th, and his opening remarks were as follows: —Mr. Ferguson said that he ought to justify his occupation of the chair at so important a meeting. He presumed he had been asked to preside as he had acted as chairman of a Board set up by the Government of New Zealand during the war period to advise as to means for increasing the efficiency of the nation, and that Board had made some far-reaching recommendations upon the liquor question. The Board, in its investigations, found that there was evidence of loss of efficiency arising from the widespread use of liquor, and consequently determined to make a wide independent inquiry, and for that purpose called for evidence, which was tendered by more than sixty witnesses, representing all classes of people and various interests, including many representatives of the liquor trade. He had to confess that he had approached the enquiry not entirely unbiased, for although he was a believer in temperance, he was not then a believer in Prohibition, and his early training as the son of a brewer, and as having two brothers who had been engaged in brewing, gave him a bias against the Prohibition movement. Notwithstanding that bias, the evidence adduced during the enquiry was so convincing that real efficiency could not be expected so long as the liquor trade existed that he had heartily joined with the other members of the Board in making drastic recommendations to the Government. That report, made more than five years ago, had led to important and beneficial restrictions in the sale of liquor. He personally regretted that the people of New Zealand had not taken the opportunity years ago that had then been given them to sweep away the “trade” by the payment of compensation to those having vested interests iii it, but that had not been done, and now the opportunity was again come to them to vote out the accursed thing, and this time without any compensation, and he -believed it would this time be swept away. YOUR RESPONSIBTLITY. It is you, the responsible voter, to say whether the boys of New Zealand shall be saved from the tempration to use intoxicants. The liquor traffic, like the eagle, ruthless and kingly in crime, lives upon New Zealand .boys. Dare yon give it yet three years more of life when to your hand lies the means of abolishing it? If you do not vote it out this time, then mothers’ hearts will break, fathers’ heads will be bowed in grief over the wreck of lives-that your vote might have saved. If you have

no children of your own. in the name of our common humanity, vote in the interests >of the children who are precious to others. (Published by arrangement by the Taranaki Provincial Prohibition Council.)

No. No. employed. employed under under NoLicense, License. Alliance Hotel 6 43 Imperial Hotel « 14 Commercial Hotel 5 17 Star & Garter Hotel 12 16 29 00 29 Increase in numbers employed

£ s. d. Breweries and malthousee . .. 35 11 2 Boot and shoe factories .... 67 10 5 Clothing and waterproofs .. . 65 0 0 Furniture and cabinet-making 66 8 4 Ship and boat-building ..... 85 16 4 Engineering ........... • 58 2 3