The movement in favour of the closing of hotel bars at 6 p.m. is apparently attaining a considerable volume throughout the dominion.
The fact, moreover, that it is being favoured by sections of the community which are not in sympathy with the views of the Prohibition Party renders it a movement of unquestionable significance.
The support which it is receiving from people who have no special hostility to the existence of the liquor traffic in normal times clearly arises from a recognition of the need in abnormal times such as the present for the avoidance of indulgences that are wasteful, and, if carried to excess, are harmful, and also for the exercise of economy.
It is, in short, with a view to the promotion of efficiency and of thrift that non-prohibitionists associate themselves with the prohibitionists in the expression of the belief that during the currency of the war the facilities for the licensed sale of intoxicants should be curtailed by a reduction of the hours during which the hotel bars may lawfully be open.
Any suggestion that the early closing of bars is desirable in the interests of the soldiers, who may otherwise be tempted to drink more than is good for them, may be disregarded.
Whatever the experience may be in the towns near which the training camps are situated, there is no ground for any broad allegation that the soldiers throughout the dominion are impairing their efficiency by excessive drinking, and there is no justification, therefore, for a request for the general closing of hotel bars at six o'clock on that score.
Even in Wellington, where thousands of soldiers are on leave every week, complaints that men in uniform are drinking too freely are no longer made publicly.
The question must therefore be viewed from the other standpoint, that, for the sake of national efficiency and national economy, the restrictions upon the retail sale of drink should be increased during the war.
Based on this consideration, the argument in favour of the early closing of hotel bars carries a great deal more force than it would have if it were founded on isolated cases of excessive drinking by soldiers or parties of soldiers.
•The soldiers and nurses at present on Quarantine Island were afforded a musical treat yesterday afternoon, when the Orphans' Club Orchestra, assisted by a few other musicians, and accompanied by Messrs W. Paget Gale and D. Cooke, visited the island and gave a number of selections.
The visitors were conveyed from Dunedin by the launches Norana (Mr Sundstrum), and Vida (Mr Walters), and on arrival at Quarantine Island took up a position at the end of the wharf, while those in isolation gathered round at a safe distance.
- ODT, 22.5.1916.
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