PROHIBITION THE ONLY REMEDY.

White Ribbon, Volume 25, Issue 295, 19 January 1920, Page 2

PROHIBITION THE ONLY REMEDY.

(To tlu* Editor.) Mad; on. We are* ns vou know pass ing through a time pregnant with des tiny in our fair land of New Zealand. I think that the* liepior question needs even more emphasising than it is **vt ting. The revenue is a weighty ques ti*>n at the present time, especially as world bankruptcy is staring us in the face. I know of no better solution **f this problem than one given years ago by Sir Robert Stout, and his at guments are as weighty now as then. Some one interjected, “Where is the revenue to come from?” to which le replied, “Where does it come from now ? Do you suppose that the brew cis or publicans pay the revenue out • >t their own pockets? No, it is von who po there drinking, who pay the revenue. For every £\ you spend in drink, the very most that goes to the* revenue is 1 Would it not he bet ter for you to pay that shilling t o the

revenue and keep the other jo/- in vour nocket.’

The speaker then enumerated things th.it could be bought for 19/- to ini prove the home and add to the com t »it of wife and children, which again would extend the trade and business of the community, and bring in prej-

|K-iit> as well as improve the muial tone ot the public as well. (.’an anybody tell us what the real drink bill of a community is: It a man goes into town with lay j(.»o, ami he drinks £i worth (he surely could not drink more in one night), and the next daj he i*. on his way hats, with out a cent in his pocket and with a muddled brain. Nor does he know what became of Ins cheque, when he sinks you up for (>d to take him .a ross »he ferry. Are those

< ounted in the I)i ink Mill ot the na lion? 1 doubt it.

Year* ago 1 found a man lying dead on the road. At the inquest it was proved that he had taken his wife to the Railway Station, and both had had a drink. After her departure he >ta\ed at this bai about an hour, and consumed m glasses of beer and wins kv, then he left for home, quite sol>er, avoiding to the evidence of the bai man. An outsider stated that the man left the hotel too drunk to mount his horse, and had to he assisted on by a large landholder of the district, who stiangelv enough also eeitdicd that the man was sober.

The wife of a drunkaid was murder ed not long ago, and the medical eviden«i* given in the Supreme ( ouit was that every pait of this poor woman’s body had been hammered vio lentlv until she succumbed.

Can we measure the price of the lives sacrificed to drink in cash? And vear by jear this is going on until the electors rise and vote the traffic out. I am, etc., I'M WCIPATION.