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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

VIII—Objections to Prohibition Considered

VIII—Objections to Prohibition Considered.

What Some Folk Say.

Under this heading we propose to offer [unclear: the] solutions to those who have difficulties but Prohibition. We may premise, whatever that the objections taken up [unclear: utly] by the general public are, in the instance, mainly put into circulation [unclear: in] the Trade," not in the interests of the [unclear: ble] of the publicans, and must be [unclear: nted] accordingly.

1. They say Prohibition interferes with [unclear: cluded] liberty That may be a good [unclear: ng] It is a good thing to have our [unclear: tional] liberty to use fire arms in the [unclear: roughferes] interfered with. And it is not nearly so many deaths and injuries [unclear: would]annually result from this exercise of [unclear: bety] as do from the liquor Traffic. But [unclear: at]they mean is that Prohibition compels can to be a teetotaler against his will [unclear: hat] is false. At the present time a man [unclear: by] make his own home-made beer and [unclear: and] use them; and so he could under [unclear: exobition], but not for sale. Prohibition aimed exclusively at the traffic in [unclear: ere] for personal abstinence temperance [unclear: rmer] rely exclusively upon moral [unclear: sion] There would be no Prohibition [unclear: ment] if the traffic in liquor were not [unclear: ssary] lawless, and a source of un-[unclear: dated] mischief. There has been [unclear: sed] a Liberty League, which is [unclear: ented] by the Trade, and simply means [unclear: License] League; and many unsuspect-[unclear: person] have been draw into it to [unclear: rt]liberty to inflict injury Upon the public by means of the Liquor Traffic. This is not liberty, but license. Prohibition makes ample provision for access to liquor for medicinal and necessary uses, and with a Government guarantee of its purity! which is lacking under License.

"Law does not put the least restraint
Upon our freedom, but maintains it;
Or if it does, ' this for our good,
To give us freer latitude;
For wholesome laws preserve us free
By stinting of our liberty."

Said one, "What is the fundamental priciple of liberty? I reply, We can sum the matter up in a few words—A man has a right to do as he pleases, so long as he pleases to do what is right. The question will be asked, Who is to say what is right? I reply, The public conscience is the only tribunal to which you can appeal for a decision upon questions affecting the social well-being of the community. There can be no other tribunal; and if the democracy will find safety anywhere, it will be in the decision of a sober and educated majority"

2. They say that if we had Prohibition we should have a worse condition of things through sly grog-selling. Experience proves that this is false. Sly grog-selling is selling liquor unlawfully and therefore slyly. This is what every publican does who sells liquor after closing times, and on Sundays, and to drunken persons. The leading newspapers have acknowledged again and again, what everybody knows, that the Trade is always doing these things.

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What makes it appear as if things were sometimes worse under Prohibition? Simply this, that under Prohibition you can get convictions, and the bad business is brought to light; but under License yon cannot. Under License the law-breaking goes on unpunished; but under Prohibition it gets punished, as it ought to be, and everybody hears about it. That is what has happened in the Clutha. The same men went unpunished when they broke the law under License; but they cannot escape under Prohibition Prohibition, therefore, is a greater success than License.

Do you ask the reason why you cannot get convictions under License as easily as "Under Prohibition? This is it When you grant a license the property licensed at once jumps up to two or three or more times its real value, and the brewer and the spirit merchant each gets a new opening for his trade. By pushing the sale of liquor in all unlawful times and ways the licensee can the more quickly make a fortune, the brewer and spirit merchant will have to supply him with all the more liquor, and the house will also have a greater rental value by reason of its reputation as a good money-making place.

But if the licensee were convicted, and his license endorsed, and this were repeated a few times, the license might be cancelled, and all these interests suddenly disappear-That means that however great a lawbreaker the licensee may be the owner of the property and the mortgagee, and perhaps some interested hank or other financial institution, and the brewer and the spirit merchant, must all use their influence to prevent his being convicted. Put all these persons together who are interested in licenses throughout the whole Colony, and you will see that they constitute a numerous, wealthy, and influential body of men, sufficient to unnerve the administration of the law from the top to the bottom.

That means, of course, that the police dare not do their duty. But Prohibition wipes out all these corrupting interests, and then you can get convictions and carry out the law. Then the licensees blandly say, "See how the law is broken under Prohibition !" and the guileless are caught in the trap. The truth would require them to say, "See how the law-breakers are detected and punished under Prohibition, and how much greater a success Prohibition is than License!" The common reckless Statement that both more liquor and worse is sold under Prohibition than under License is simply and always absolutely false. The whole administration will be more effective when by popular vote we get rid of the powerful corrupting interests above described. It is the interest of the Liquor King to get the law broken in Prohibition districts like the King Country and the Clutha, and then to spread it in the newspapers and exaggerate it, on purpose to discredit Prohibition. This should make the public more determined not to be beaten by them, but to sweep them out of the way. If they could sell more liquor under Prohibition, they would not fight against it so fiercely, but wel-come it.

3. They say that if we shut up the hotels there will not be necessary public accommodation, We do not propose, [unclear: of] shut up the hotels; we only propose to stop the drink-selling in them.

If there are houses which do nothing [unclear: bt] sell drink, these will not be missed-except for the better. As a matter of [unclear: fid] in this Colony, as elsewhere, where then are now no licensed houses, [unclear: experiewi] proves that you can get as good, and [unclear: ofta] better, accommodation than when that were licensed houses in these places. The writer is one who has travelled over the whole Colony continuously for years, and knows whereof he writes, In many places the accommodation is improved, be cause, in addition to its being the same in other respects, it is without the nuisance of drunken and foul mouthed loafers, which formerly made the places unfit for the accommodation of families.

The ordinary temperance boarding-house has no chance beside the Licensed house; but when houses cease to be licensed for the sale of liquor the same competent public caterers, who occuring some of them, will still he available as well as their premises. A Bill before Parliament last session provided that the occupiers of these houses, when dis-[unclear: licen] might make their houses bona fide public-houses again by registering them a "registered hotels—hotels under public regulation-—as open to everybody as the licensed houses, but without the sale of liquor. The additional business [unclear: lack] registration would bring them would be a sufficient inducement to register. Ask your Candidate for Parliament to support this Bill when it is brought on again next session—the "Registered Hotels" Bill.

A Dutchman's Song About his Baby.

"True as I live, 'most every day
I laugh me vild to see de vay
Dot shmall young baby try to play,
Dot funny leetul baby,

Ven I look at dem leetul toes,
Und see dot funny leetul nose,
Und hear de vay dot rooster crows,
I shmile like 1 vos crazy.

Sometimes there comes a leetul squall,
Dot's ven de vindy vind vill crawl
Right and his leetul stomach shmall,
Now dot's too bad for baby,

Dot make him sing at night so sweet,
Und gory-borric he must eat,
Und I must jump shpry on my feet
To help dot leetul baby.

He pulls my nose and kicks my hair
Und crawls me over everywhere,
Und slobbers me—but vot I care !
Dot vos my shmall young baby.

Around my neck dot leetul arm
Vos squosing me—so nice and warm !
Oh, may there never come some harm
To dot shmall leetul baby."

Und 'cus I has to go and vote,
Und 'cus 1 on dot baby dote,
De top line to strike out I note,
For [unclear: the] shmall leetul baby

How the Question Came Home.

In the dusk of a summer evening
I rooked my child to rest;
Then sat and mused, with my darling
Still folded to my breast.

His ringlets swept my shoulder,
His breath was on my cheek,
And I kissed his dimpled finger
With a love I could not speak.

A form caine through the gateway,
And up the garden walk—
And my neighbour sat down as often
To have an evening talk.

She saw me caress my baby
With almost reverent touch,
And she shook her grey head gravely;
"You love the boy too much!"

"That cannot be," I answered,
"While I love our Father more;
He smiles on a mothers rapture
O'er the baby that she bore."

For a while we both sat silent,
In the twilight's deeper grey;
Then she said, " I believe that baby
Grows lovelier every day."

"And I suppose that the reason
I feel so drawn to him,
Is because he reminds me strongly
Of my own little baby, Jim."

My heart stood still a moment
With a horror I dared not show,
While the trembling voice beside me
Went on, in accents low;

"Just the same high, white forehead,
And rings of shining hair,
And a smile of artless mischief
I have seen this Jamie wear.

"And I've sometimes thought—well, Mary,
The feeling no doubt you guess—
That my trouble would now be lighter
Had I loved my baby less."

My neighbour rose abruptly,
And left me in the gloom.
But the sob of a broken spirit
Was echoing in the room.

And when the lamp was lighted,
I knelt by Jamie's bed;
And wept o'er the noble forehead
And the ringlet crowned head.

For I thought of the bloated visage,
And the matted hair of him
Whom all the village children
Knew only as "Drunken Jim."

And my heart cried out, "O Father,
Spare me that bitter cup !
And destroy the liquor-traffic
Before my boy grows up."

Temperance Cause.

A New Version.

"Sing a song of sixpence, you fellow full of rye,
With not a cent to bury you to-morrow, should you die;
The keepers in the bar-room, counting out his money,
His wife is in the parlour, with well-dressed sis' and sonuy;
Your wife has gone out working, and wash peoples' clothes,
To pay for old rye whisky to colour your red nose.