OUR LIQUOR BILL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1938, Page 5

OUR LIQUOR BILL

N.Z. ALLIANCE EXPRESSES CONCERN BIG INCREASE IN FOUR YEARS PROSECUTIONS ALSO MUCH MORE NUMEROUS (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Concern at the increased expenditure on spirits, wines and'beers in New Zealand and at the increase in the number of cases connected with the drink traffic which were brought before the Magistrates’ Court was expressed at the fifty-first annual meeting of the New Zealand Alliance held in Wellington this week. About 100 delegates, representing the Christian churches and other organisations interested in temperance, were present from all parts of New Zealand. Mr J. I. Royds presided. It was stated that from 1933 to 1937 New Zealand’s drink bill increased by £3,702,508 (74 per cent.), or £2 4s 6d a a head. In 1933 the total consumption of liquor was 5.900 gallons a head, and in 1937 9.977 gallons —an increase of 4.077 gallons a head. Between 1934 and 1936 the bill increased by £1.804,426 (33.7 per cent), or £1 2s 2d a head. The consumption in this period increased by 2.195 gallons a head. Cases connected with the drink traffic heard before the Magistrates’ Court showed a substantial increase between 1935 and 1936, and a further increase was revealed in the figures for the 1936-1937 period. Offences tried before the courts in 1935 and 1936 are as follow, the percentage increase being given in parentheses: — For drunkenness, 3170, 4186 (32.65); for selling liquor on licensed premises after hours, 1821, 1957 (7.4); premises where liquor was seized under warrant, 28, 137 (382.2); for being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, 349, 509 (48.7); for driving which caused death or injury, 38, 67 (76.3); for reckless driving. 1571, 2107 (34.1); for common assault. 490, 600 (22.4); for breaches of prohibition orders, 357, 429 (20.1); for selling liquor without a licence. 63, 134, (112.6). The number of hotelkeepers prosecuted in 1935 was 645, compared with 667 in 1936—an increase of 3.3 per cent. The total number of licensed houses in New Zealand is 1392.