PROHIBITION IN SYDENHAM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4197, 20 August 1892, Page 3

PROHIBITION IN SYDENHAM.

Mat has km done and is to be done, [Continued pbom Last Week.] Tho following is Iho continuntion of the interview recently hold between the Rev. L. M, Isitt and a reporter of Jk a Ohristchurch paper : ■ Eeforteu : How is the movemont progressing generally ? It is going ahead so rapidly its to astonish the most sanguine of its friends, In a township like Knngiom. whore two years ago we might gut a hundred people to attend a prohibition meeting, on Friday last the drilled, on a dark, wet, night, was packed an audience of over 700; and iho meeting was at»white heat of enthusiasm, No sooner was the ■ judge's advorso decision known tlum tho Bcotmakets' Union of Christchurch, without any promptiug on our part, passed a resolution urging the Govsrnment to give us the diiect veto, and offers of financial aid poured in from every side, I really believe it is no exaggeration to say "that we are winning converts at tho rato of hundreds a month, Thoro are four lecturers in the Now Zealand fink!, and it is a common thing for 200 and 300 pledges to bo taken in small country towns in a single mission of I two or three days; whilst prohibition • # leagues are springing up on every hand, How about losses to tho cause ? Are there many lapiea? Wo hold the vast majority of the recruits w« thus g»in, and there is undoubtedly a growing recognition on the part of many who have hitherto depended on moral suasion that tho only way to really deal with tho evil ia to stop the supply. Can you give me any idea of tho probabilities and of the course ol legislation in tho matter ? How do you stand in the House of Representative!) ?

We have many professed sympathisers, but you know what politicians are. I think that so soon as politic cians aro convinced that the votesare behind our b«ok ihey will be seized with temperance fervor and pivo tho people all they ask for—viz., tho right to decido themselves whother they

will have liquor sold in tbeir midst or not. I should like to lay stress Just hero upon the fact that Prohibi""ffyonisls do not ask their political representatives to vote for prohibition, All they require is that such an Act will bo passed as will enable a majority in any community to say whoiher they will hare prohibition or not; and if, as the licensed victuallers' party continually claim, they are quite sure wo aro " a small but loud-mouthed minority," whatever have they to fear in an Act that simply puts all the power into the hands of their majority ? Supposing you lose your appeal, will that dishearten you ?

Wo believe that we are in the hippy position of "Heads I win, tails you lose." While wo recognise that this is not a Prohibition Act, wa maintain that it was intended to give the power of local prohibition. For years past both temperance and liquor men believed that it did give this power, and we fought the elections under this principle, and it was only when we gained majorities that jthey discovered the legal flaw, Any .politician knows that it is not an oasy thing to withdraw from the people, on the strength of legal technicality, power they have believed themselves to possess, and should the Committee be ousted, and the Supreme Court decide that the Act under no circumstances allows a district to refuse all licenses, and the wishes of seveneighths ol a democratic community like Sydenham be thwarted by the interested few, it must result in hastening tho direct veto, which would be infinitely more satisfactory to us, You are certainly sanguine as to the future of the movement?

Well, I do not seo how anyone who knows the position oi affiura can be

anything eke. When the enemy tremble, surely we may exult. Ask any of your banking or monetary institutions what ihey think of hotel property as a security, and how much they are prepared to advance upon it. Why, only the other day a Christchurch agent complained to me that /no man will buy a hotel at auy price yow, and would only lease one on tho condition that the lease is determined should tke license be refused, This is indicative. Besides, nothing can keep the knowledge from the community that wherever prohibition baa bad anything like a fair trial it bus been a huge success. Those little paragraphs aboutslygrog-selling,etc, will not assist to throw dust into the eyes of the people in the face of such magnificent and unanswerable testimony as is yielded by States like Kansas and Maine. Nor need we now depend altogether on America. In Great Britain there are 1,500 centres of partial prohibition, At Tpxteth, a suburb of Liverpool, containing 32,000 of a population, the closing of the public-houses has so decreased the poor rate and imoroyed thp neighbourhood and community that tbreo or four months ago the people of Liverpool, profiting by the object lesson at their doors, brought puch pressure to bear upon tho City ijjjincil thgtt by twenty to three they ...rfWied a requisition'to Parliament asking that the power to deal with the public-bouses be put into the hands of the people, affixing the common seal to the requisition, Facts are chiels (hat winna ding, and to my mind such facts as these prove very conclusively that the days of tho grog shops are numbered.