MINISTERS OBJECT

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21190, 13 August 1940, Page 2

MINISTERS OBJECT

WET CANTEEN POLICY POSITION IN KING COUNTRY RESOLUTION AT HAMILTON A delegate from the New Zealand Alliance, consisting of Messrs J. R. Fow and J. Treloar, waited upon the Hamilton Ministers’ Association yesterday to discuss urgent matters relating to what they described as the alarming increase of drinking in New Zealand and the grave danger to young men by the opening of wet canteens in the training camp. Both delegates addressed the meeting. Mr Fow pointed out that owing to the growing popularity of the cinema and the radio, neither of which was particularly concerned with the matter of temperance, there had been a slackening of interest in this vital question. Quoting from the London Times, Mr Fow said that the paper had stated that the temperance cause had been one of the greatest agencies for righteousness and democracy. That democracy was now being threatened by the Government in allowing the sale of intoxicating liquors to minors in the canteens.

It was proposed to open wet canteens in the territorial camps, including one in the King Country, said Mr Fow. If this were done then the solemn compact entered into by the Government with the great Maori chiefs of that area, when they gave the land for the main-trunk railway, upon the understanding that intoxicating liquor was never to be sold in the King Country, would be broken. The time had come for the churches and all good-hearted people, who had the welfare of youth at heart, to protest against this evil in the strongest possible terms.

‘Rapid Deterioration’

Mr Treloar said there was great concern being expressed in many quarters regarding the “ rapid deterioration of New Zealand.” It was lamentable that so many people were foolish enough to believe that the only way to entertain our soldiers was to give them liquor. The young people were taking it as a matter of course, and within a very few years the drink bill had risen from just over £5,000,000 to over £10,000,000. Incontroversible proof had been made available that crime, disease and lunacy showed a rise and fall with the rise and fall of the drink bill. Hospitals were being enlarged, and contraception was not the only cause of the falling birth rate, drink also being a sinister factor in this decline.

Public opinion needed to be again stirred, and emphatic indignation expressed, especially as the matter of placing temptation before the young soldiers in making available by the wet canteens intoxicating liquor, twice as potent as that sold in the Old Country, to lads still in their teens. The law forbade the sale of all intoxicating liquor to minors. Protest To Government There was a lengthy discussion, and the following resolution was passed to be forwarded to the Minister of Defence and the Hamilton member:—■ “ That the Hamilton Minister's Association enters an emphatic protest against the proposal to open wet canteens in territorial camps, as the sale of intoxicating liquor in the camps would be a grave danger to the moral and physical well-being of our young men. We would point out also that in the event of the opening of wet canteens in the King Country this would be a contravention of the solemn compact entered into by the Government with the great Maori chiefs when they gave the land for the main-trunk railway, stipulating that no drink should ever be sold in their territory. We point out also that there were no wet canteens in the camps for the last war and a finer body of men never left these shores.”