NEW ZEALAND AND VICTORIA'S LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 6 January 1909, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND AND VICTORIA'S LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

COMPARISONS.' Tli.q rejection by tho Lcrds of the Licensing Bill brings to_ my mind an i article on the above subject which appeared in the Westminster Gazette a week back. Mr Harrison, the writer, iinds that the temperance movement i has been advanced by woman suffrage, This view seems somewhat d'flictilt to maintain in view of the fact that the latest statistics show an inciT-ase in the amount of drink consumed in New Zealand, and a decrease "in Victoria, where women aro^not enfranchised, so far as State legislation is concerned. Now Zealand figures show for 1907 an increase per head of population in expenditure nrjen liquor of 4d, B£d (£3 15s lOd as compared with £3 lls l-|d),

which is estimated as being an aceregato increase of £500,000 for the yeair 1Z %& l more, startlil5 S increase on tno 1896 expenditure of £2 19s 84* per head, when women Buffrage wk beginmng to take effect. In Victoria on the ether hand, the average c* Sjnditure for tLo iiv© years ended oa e=embor ,31st, 1906, was £3 ss, and ror the five years ended on December 31st, 1902, the amount was £3 18s lOdl bo m Victoria the consumption ofc: liquor is decreasing, while In New Zealand it is rising, and in the latter Stat*tbe consumption is about lister bea£ of the population greater than in tie former. In the face of there figures, it is difficult for advocates of women: suftrago to urge that its operations in: New Zealand Has promoted temperance. They would be on safe ground were they to contend that woman suffragskas made New Zealand so much more prosperous than Victoria, that the people can afford to consume more liquor..