NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2469, 8 May 1888, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE.

We have received the second animal report of the New Zealand Alliance. The Executive congratulates the Alliance on the satisfactory results of the year's operations, ami state that the work of consolidating existing auxiliaries and forming new ones has been vigorously carried 011. There are now 135 existing ii.i.'iliary branches in the colony. The v. port states " there eari be no manner of doubt but the marked advance of public s . itiment in all parts of the colony in iivour of prohibition has been very largely secured through the work performed by the agent, honorary deputations, auxiliaries, and the operations of the Alliance generally during the last two years." The income was £715 19s 9d and the expenditure £712 2s lOd ; the number of subscribers on the books amounts to 3.100, nn increase of 50 per cent, in the year. The necessity of a Prohibition Party to ultimately obtain for the people the right to prohibit, is dwelt upon. ''A correct solution contains within it potentialities of great importance to the future of this colony. It embraces the elevation of the rising generatipn upon whose education so much public money is now being spent, the freeing of our local industries from the draw back which want of native capital implies, and the utilisation to the best advantage of the revenue raised from the colonist by severing from it the nonproduction expenditure which the maintenance of drink, caused pauperism, crime, aud national immorality entails." The report then reviews the steps taken to form the Prohibition party, the part taken by the Alliance during the last elections, and the result of their efforts. It is thought that the approaching session will present a more favourable opportunity than the last "for testing how far Parliament is prepared to trust the people, and it is recommended as an instruction to the incoming, Jsxasutive that a resolution, or Bill.nformulating the advanced opinion of the country in favour of the right to prohibit being granted to the people, should be prepared for introduction ; such resolution, or Bill, to be introduced annually until its demand is conceded." The progress of Prohibition aud the working of Local Option in the colonies are noted. The amount spent during the year on drink was £2,050,216, being a decrease upon the previous year of £209,295. The Registrar-General, in his report, says :—"The steady decrease in the consumption per head of the population is very noticeable. The decrease in quantity in 188(3 on that in ISSS was at the rate of over 5 per cent., and the decrease per head of the population was at the rate of 21 per cent. Hence, it is said, "our people may be growing more sober, but the amount spent in drink still remains one of the great causes of trade depression and personal suffering in the community." In ISBG the number of persons charged with drunkenness was 36 per cent, of the total number of prisoners, but of the whole, only 42 were New Zealand born, which bears out the fact that Young New Zealand gravitates towards sobriety. The report concludes with a reference to the licensing elections, which it does not consider satisfactory. "It is not the fitness of the persons selling the drink, nor the accommodation possessed by the houses in which the drink is sold, that does the mischief we deplore : it tn tho th'i/tk itscljj hoiccvcv (Hxpcimcif