LOCAL OPTION IN PRACTICE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2419, 1 November 1892, Page 4

LOCAL OPTION IN PRACTICE.

There is an interesting short article in the Sunday Magazine for August which sheds some light upon the probable course of events in England when the teetotallers have their will and Deal option is the law of the land. It is entitled A Prohibition of Drinking Shops : How it Came About and What Followed.” The writer ssays ; “ Sometimes 1 have been asked, ‘ Is the removal of drink traffic a counsel of perfection, the impossible dream of the hopeful temperance reformer ! Can a whole community be found voluntarily, and through a course of years, to free itself from the main cause of its demoralisation? « My answer is ; I do not merely think or suppose, I know that it has been done. And by the healthful development of the moral sense of communities it can sooner or later bo done everywhere.” «In the Southern pare of the State of .Hew Jersey, 40 miles, from Philadelphia, stands the town of Millville, containing * population cf 10,000, almost wholly of working men and their families. I know of only one college-educated man iu the

town. A generation ago it was specially noted for its intemperance. “ When the day came that, by the terms of the charter which incorporated the village into a ‘ city,’ the State granted the privilege of local option, an increasing number became convinced of the practicability of the suppression of the liquor traffic. Opposed to them were the habitual drinkers backed by the pecuniary interests of three large h-Uels and twenty lower-class drinking saloons. Year by year the number of the Prohibitionists grew. The first step gained was the suppression of the smaller saloons, in which the three large taverns joined, in order to obtain a monoply of the sale. But, in the following year, the irritated saloon-keepers, by way of retaliation, joined the Prohibitionists in closing the taverns. Thus, by a process of mutual decapitation, the city got rid of both classes of licensed houses.

“ It was the elected City Council which controlled the question of licenses. In the decisive year elections gave a majority of one in favour of the sale of liquor. The deciding vote against prohibition was that of a butcher, and the wives of the artisans let him know that if, by the aid of his vote, the tavern licenses were renewed, they would buy meat elsewhere. He absented himself from the City Council, and that year, for the first time, no applications for licenses were granted.

“ The three tavern keepers now £ struck,’ and tried to force licenses by declining to entertain travellers. In this new emergency a lady, who had the principal house in the place, temporarily received all travellers. The reformers triumphed. Two of the taverns became temperance boarding-houses, and the third received visitors to the place.

“ For many years the battle was a close one, not without risk of defeat. But the increase in the prosperity of the town, the welfare of individual families—moat of all, the improved character of the young men, was so evident, that the prohibition vote grew greater year by year, until finally the question was no longer contested. The result was mainly owing to the wise and unfaltering eflorts of the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union. “Now for the results of 15 years of this ‘ home protection.’ Instead of three taverns and 20 saloons, poisoning the moral and physical life of the community, a thriving mechanics’ institute, costing £4OOO, was built, where a reading room, musical and debating societies and lectures, occupy the evenings of the young. Three music shops are established, with an annual sale of several hundred pounds of cottage organs and musical instruments, and it is literally true that young men have grown up never having seen or tasted alcoholic liquors. On the occasion of a scientific lecture there could not be found in all the town enough alcohol to furnish the material for the experiments. Two policemen are found amply sufficient to watch over a town of 10,000 inhabitants.”