342 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



of licence." l Local option, a form of prohibition, is not en- 

 forced in a single large town of America, except where there 

 is an adjacent "safety valve/' 2 Canada presents much the 

 same spectacle as the United States. Wherever the popula- 

 tion is at all dense prohibition fails. 3 Most of the Australian 

 colonies have a law of local option in one form or another. 

 Practically speaking it is nowhere enforced 4 except in the 

 " King Country," the inhabitants of which are almost ex- 

 clusively Maoris, and in the Clutha district of New Zealand. 

 Its success may be gauged by the following : " The Maori 

 chiefs in the ' King Country/ New Zealand, have asked the 

 Government to substitute a limited licensing system for the 

 prohibition which is in force at present, and under which 

 liquor of bad quality is being sold everywhere. Mr. Seddon, 

 the Premier, approves of the proposal. He told a deputation 

 that the chiefs and the police were unanimous in stating 

 that prohibition had spread the evil it had been intended to 

 exclude. Sly grog-selling is rampant, and could not be 

 stopped. The same thing was going on in the Clutha district 

 in Otago, where there were no Maoris, and where prohibition 

 was enforced by popular vote." 6 



530. The following is a typical example of the operation of 

 prohibitive legislation in a modern democratic community : 

 " The Clutha Prohibition is not the only one we have had in 

 New Zealand. A Local Option law existed in this colony 

 many years ago. Under its provisions it was open to the 

 people in any district to vote ' No Licence.' In the North 

 Seventy Mile Bush in the Hawke's Bay Province, in a town- 

 ship called Ormondville, a man who had drunk himself mad 

 went home one day and murdered his wife and four or five 

 children. Naturally a thrill of horror passed through the 

 district, and when the next Local Option poll was taken the 

 people voted solidly and solemnly for ' No Licence.' The 

 public-houses in Makotutu, Ormondville, and Norsewood 

 were closed for three years. Did drinking and drunkenness 

 cease ? No. The drinking customs of the people underwent 

 a change for the worse ; sly grog-selling became rampant, and 

 more liquor was ordered for consumption in that district than 

 ever before or since. In private houses bottles were kept 

 from which any one might help himself, so long as he deposited 

 the requisite sixpence per nip on the mantelshelf. In more 



1 The Temperance Problem and Social Reform, p. 242. 



2 Op. cit., pp. 315-322. 3 Op. cit., pp. 326-346. 



4 Op. cit., pp. 350, 352, 354, 355, 357. 



6 The Morning Post, October 29, 1900. 



