CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8401, 17 April 1907, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor),

gj r> _Will you allow me a little •space in your paper so as to show how prohibition is carried on at Invercargill. I went down to Invercargill for a few days, and I thought it ■would be a prohibited town, but I found out that you could buy aa much beer aa you liked, aa long as yougot two gallons —you could not buy any less. Just to look down past a brewery at Invercargill on a Saturday, you would think there was a big sale on With all the people with their traps, and two or three jars to get filled with beer, lined up along -the street, and yet they call that prohibition. I don't aee why the brewera should be allowed to sell beer in a v prohibited town any more than any one olae. I say stop any sale of it in the prohibited part, and keep brewers •or anyone else from selling vt. They closed the hotels at Invercargill, and yet they let the brewers sell as much as they like. It seems to me that the breweries at Invercargill can not make the beer fast enough to supply the people. Speight and Co., of Dunedin, have just, put up another brewery, and Invercargill ought to have plenty of beer now. The brewers will be making a little •gold mine, and the people of Invercargill can get as touch beer as they like. It ia certainly different to Ashburton. If any one k found selling beer at the latter town they are brought up before the Court for sly • grog-selling, and yet they let the brewers soil it at Invercargill. I wonder what the prohibition party ate thinking about when they have things that way. They cl6sod the hotels to make the brewers rich. • They might just as well have left them open, as there are more people at Invercargill at the present time tbat have a supply of beer in their houses than ever there was before prohibition was carried. I have voted for no license myself, but when I see the way it is carried on at Invercargill and Ashburton I shall vote for license. I called into a Southland brewery one day, and there were five or six men there. I think they all had about enough, because I am sure that they would not be able to ,walk very straight, but they were quite happy alongside of a large barrel of beer. I heard that the brewers have carts going round the town with a lot of two gallon jars selling them to any one that wants • one. I don't think prohibition will do much good at Invercargill, as they can get as mnch beer as they like, and if they want anything stronger than beer they have only to go to Wallacetown or Woodlands, or the Bluff, and • n> doubt those that like their whisky "go to those places for it. I don't see how prohibition will work that way. The only way it may work is by taking the vote of the whole colony, and have a straight out "Yes" or "No." Then if they carried prohibition stop liquor from being made in or imported to the colony. A lot of people make mistakes when they go to vote on account pf the ballot paper that is sed. If they only had "Yes" and "No" there would .be few mistakes, and must people would have their minds made up to vote for "Yes" or "No" before they left for the polling booth.— I am, etc., MODERATE DRINKER. Featherston, April 16th, 1907.