ADDRESS ON NO-LICENSE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9136, 11 July 1908, Page 5

ADDRESS ON NO-LICENSE.

MR H D BEDFORD AT MASTERTON.

CROWDED ATTENDANCE AT TOWN HALL. The Town Hall was crowded last evening, when Mr H. D. Bedford delivered an address on the liquor question. The chair was occupied by the Mayor (Mr P. L. Hollings), the stage being alaO occupied hy members of various choirs of local churches, members of the local NoLicense League, and other prominent supporters of the temperance movement. The Chairman briefly introduced the speaker, and in doing so paid a tribute to the good influence exercised by Mr Bedford's addresses prior to the last No-Licenae election. Mr Bedford, after a few preliminary remarks, went straight to the economic aspect of the liquor question. He referred at length to the manner in which the drink traffic had been approached by the leaders of public in England and elsewhere, and especially by the British Government. Such brilliant men as

MR LLOYD GEORGE AND MR ASQUITH had declared that the Government rather than relinquish its efforts to cope with the evil effects of drink would give up office. The No-License movement was not, in short, a local movement, confined to Clutha, Invercargill, and such places, but was a world wide one, which was appealing with increasing force to the conscience of the people. THE MAGNITUDE UF "THE TRADE." Mr Bedford" dwelt at consiuerabl." length on the magnitude of the tiade, as disclosed not only by the investigations of opponents, but hy liquor newspapers, and official statistics. The most powerful liquor organ in the world, a Vienna paper, had stated that it would require all the gold coins in the world to pay the world's liquor bill for eighteen months. In Britain in 1904 no less a sum than £168,000,000 was spent in drink, although the expenditure now stood at about £160,000,000 per annum. This enormous 3um was enough not only to defray the whole of the State expenditure in all departments —army, navy, civil, etc but to leave the large balance of £28,000,000 remaining. EXPENDITURE ON DRINK IN NEW ZEALAND. The amount expended on drink in New Zealand for the past 37 years was more than enough to liquidate the whole of the public debt of the Dominion, and in addition would complete all the railways of the country and carry the Government on for one vear. The amount spent on drink for this 37 years was £93,000,000. In 1906 the amount paid in wages to the whole of the mule operatives in New Zealand was not quite four million pounds, and the drink bill for that year reached £3,667,379, end that wa3 only for liquor sola by the gallon. ! When It was considered that drink va? SOW by tho glais, and when the mixing ?«it withdiiwjtft? p?::r.sidered, it .vou'!' 1 °c X'X.-u uia. L.' actual public expenulLaiC would be over live million pounds, reckoned at ♦-he retail price of liquor sold over the bar. A four years' expenditure on drink in New Zealand would be sufficient to put chare the whole of the industries of t!:c I?omir.ior.—lar.d, plant and raw mateiial. while in cr.c i year three times the amount of rates ! collected by the whole of the local bodies of the country vvaa paid away |in liquor. It was thus to be seen 1 that the liquor t'ade was" thS

BEisl PATRONISED OP ALL,' and exceeded in importance our combined butter, cheese, frozen meat and other industries And what was got in return? I The Speaker proposed to prove that' any financial return the community received collectively from the State from the liquor traffic was more than balanced by the coat to the country of the presence of such a trade, while in addition its moral, mental and physical effects had to be borne in mind The supporters of nolicense were not now, as was contend • ed formerly, a "BAND OF MISERABLE , FANATICS," but included the brain and culture of th 3 world. In the year 1847 2,000 British physicians had declared against the use of alcohol as a beverage, on the grounds of its poisonous effects on the system, even though taken in the smallest quantities. The prominence of its evil effects was never shown to greater prominence than when of 1.1,000 men medically examined at Home for the Boer war only twelve hundred passed A Royal Commission which had investigated the cause declared that the use of alcloho was the chief iause of the terrible national physical decadence, and further it stated that users of alcoholic liquors were more susceptible to attacks of tuberculosis, and other inflammatory diseases than were total abstainers. MEDICAL CONDEMNATION OF LIQUOR

In 1907 seven medical men had actually declared that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage was beneficial. Since then three had recant ed—had declared they were sorry that ever they had made such a declaration. The remaining four had not yet done so, but that was easy to understand, seeing they held between them 457 shares in large breweries. The whole thing had been engineered in the first instance by a lawyer, and the medical men were none eminent in their profession. In 1904, moreover, 15,000 physicians of Great Britain, probably the united profession, had declared emphatically that alcohol was a poison as a beverage, and their testimony was surely good against seven others. LIQUOR AND LUNACY. Mr Bedford quoted exhaustive figures collated from official asylum returns in New Zealand and elsewhere, to show that drink was directly responsible for at least 25 per cent, of the insanity of the community. In some cases the figures given were more than 25 per cent., even as high as 42 per cent. Crime also owed by far the greater proportion of its victims to the drink curse, no estimate of the number of criminals owing their downfall to drink being below 80 per cent. A BAD ECONOMIC BARGAIN. Passing on, the speaker showed by figures that license was a bad bargain for State and community, and

pointed out that a British Government Committee of Inquiry had reported that the liquor trade only contributed £7 10s out of every £IOO spent on it to the labour market, while the next lowest industry on the list contributed not less than £2l per £IOO. He declared that the New Zealand liquor people had a good bargain when they paid only 774,000 to the State for £5,000,000 of trade, and that the State paid away £924,000 as a result of the„existence of the liquor traffic. REFUTED ALLEGATIONS. The lecturer dwelt for over twenty minutes replying to assertions by "the trade" that no-license had been a failure in New Zealand districts. He declared that at Ashburton, Invercargill, Clutha. Oamaru and elsewhere very material prosperity ensued on the advent of nolicense, and he defied the liquor party to procure counter manifestoes to those issued by independent citizens of no-license towns, declaring in favour of prohibition After a telling peroration on the moral degradation caused by excessive use of aclohol, Mr Bedford resumed his seat at the close of a vigorous address, amid prolonged applause Short addresses were then made by Messrs J. McGregor, J. Prentice and the Rev. A. T. Thompson. A hearty votes of thanks was accorded Mr Bedford for his address.