THE TRUE SOLUTION OF INTEMPERANCE.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 61, 14 November 1911, Page 3

THE TRUE SOLUTION OF INTEMPERANCE.

(Published by Arrangement.)

Will-be much obliged for space in your valuable journal to enable me to suggest other means more conducive than either continuance or no-license, to the cause of true temperance, as neither oi these systems, according to many unbiased minds, is capable of accomplishing this much desired state of society. My subject consists therefore of (a) license, (b) no-license, (c) and the true solution of intemperance, each of which. I shall briefly explain. I. The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors under license which generally prevails at present in the Dominion, arc too often attended with drunkenness and its consequent misery and crime. Such evils, it may be claimed, arise from the violation, rather than from the observance, of the licensing laws and are deplored alike by all parties. Nevertheless, the system, according to the opinion of many, stands condemned and requires alteration.

2. Yet not all who are dissatisfied with continuance, advocate the cause of no-license, in order to avoid, what appears to them, greater evils, some of which are as follows :

aiming at prohibiting the manufacture, sale and use of all alcoholic beverages in New Zealand, necessarily pre-supposes a network of legislation drawn around the whole community, and curtailing individual liberty within its meshes to an undesirable extent.

(b). The adoption of the system includes also the complete change of the present bases of taxation and the consequent revolution, of society and government.

(c). The system is opposed by those who see, even in its present successful movement, the germs of its own destruction, and the more successful the more evident its disintegration appears _ to them, as the larger the prohibited area becomes, the greater the danger of some parts reverting to license—a movement that would sound the death-knell of the no-license party and leave matters worse than formerly.

(d). Others again oppose die movement, beeause where it has been the longest tried it has proved unsuccessful, as in Maine after sixty years' experiment. For these causes as well as others, which cannot well be denied, no-license, as a satisfactory solution of intemperance, meets with no favour from a large number of the community. It fares no better than continuance. Both have been tried and found wanting.

3. What then, it may be asked,

is the true solution of intemperance, which while avoiding the most objectionable of the above systems, safeguards the people's liberty, emtails no revolutionary changes in society, while accomplishing more effectively the cause of true temperance. ' *

~ mean iii the first place State ■manufacture and County t control of all spirituous liquors within;...the Dprtiinion. /Ift'the Government owned the required institutions and manufactured all ':intoxicants, just as jt owns and ''administers- our if each County owned trolled the hotels within its territory, the .'first ■ step on the--road that leads to temperance would have been-taken. . v (b)rn the second place, I mean" theVsunprcssiph;;pf b y 1a w which 11 nd e r -th es e circumstances could"" "easily be. enforced, owing to the Govern-' ment who manufactures, or the Counties that control, having no direct interest, would not encourage the sale of intoxicants. These provisions would soon lead to moderation in the use of 1 alcohol, as in other articles of diet. Drunkenness would soon j be unknown in the land, and j temperance with freedom would walk hand in hand.

Dominion and County control, therefore, aided by legislation, is worthy of a trial in this country, which leads the world in some beneficial legislation, rather than maintain the old system of license with its evil results, or the adoption of no-license with its shortcomings and extreme measures.

T. P. LYNCH

The Presbytery, ~S', Kihikihi, . . T^k Nov; ioth, 191 T. -",*fc