FALLACIES OF NO-LICENSE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3043, 13 November 1908, Page 5

FALLACIES OF NO-LICENSE.

A PLAIN STATEMENT FOR FAIR AND MODERATE PEOPLE.

To the Editor.

Sir,—l. If the advocates of NoLicense are in earnest about checking the abuse of alcoholic beverages, why do they not endeavour to stop the importation of all liquor into tho Dominion, as well as the manufacture of ail liquor within the Dominion itself? 2. Can any impartial person deny that a minority electorate provides profitable employment for interested propagandists and agitators, and (still mere important) sends men to i Parliament who could not otherwise, possibly, get there? j 3. Why do the advocates of NoLicense lay at the door of city breweries all the evils arising from the abuse of alcoholic liquors, when they know, or should know (for the Customs receipts furnish irrefutable proof) that colonial-brewed beer forms LESS THAN ONE-EIGHTH of all alcoholic liquors consumed? 4. Masterton rightly boasts of the vast improvement effected in the erection of durable buildings within the Borough of recent years, of which the hotels are most conspicuous, having entailed a great outlay of money, and which were erected with the approval, if not by the actual direction of the local Licensing Bench. No-License would inflict a grevious wrong upon the proprietors and licensees of such hotels, and also upon visitors to the town and the travelling public in general. To be plain, the present high standard of accommodation could not be maintained under NoLicense, and, as a direct result, visitors would be discouraged, and would take up theii quarters in the nearest neighbouring town where sensible conditions under License prevailed. 5. No-License may well be characterised as a campaign of vilification of all engaged in the trade, whether wholesale or retail. The whole propaganda of the NoLicense Party is replete with the grossest exaggerations of the abuses arising from the use of alcoholic beverages. This nefarious campaign, if successful, will not reduce the number of intemperate people; on the contrary, it will tend to increase intemperance by manufacturing sly grog-shops—which all lawabiding people condemn—at the cost oi ruining the legitimate and lawfully controlled trade. All modi ate and fair-minded people should unite in voting for continuance in the interest, not only of their rights and liberties, but in the interest of. true temperance and sobriety.— I am, etc.,

FAIR PLAY.