The Traffic In Strong Drink.

[The extent to which rum and other strong drink entered into the early economics, reads like a parody on our latter-day prohibition and publichouse restriction movements. Captain Cook rewarded one of his sailor lads—a sharpeyed youth named Nicholson, but who for brevity was dubbed Young Nick—with a jorum of rum for being first to discover land on the New Zealand coast. As outcome thereof we have Nick's Head at the entrance to Poverty Bay. More striking still, the head centre of New Zealand administration, about the year 1806, had its fiscal currency in rum, and the authorities of New South Wales had the traffic entirely in their own hands. It was Governor Bligh's determination to put down this traffic that led to his ultimate deposition and imprisonment. The amount of strong drink imported into New Zealand all through the pakeha-Maori and whaling periods, more especially during the early thirties, was enormous.]

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In 1832 attention is first drawn to it with a view to restrictions. Under date April 4, 1832, Backhouse, in his narrative, states:—"At a preliminary meeting, held in Hobart Town for the formation of a Temperance Society, the senior colonial chaplain stated he had attended between 300 and 400 criminals to execution, 19 out of every 20 of whom confessed having been driven into crime directly or indirectly by intemperance.

What became of that movement is not stated, but it appears not to have been altogether barren of results. February 5, 1836, Hobart Town Courier reports:—"An important subject now occupies the mind of the inhabitants of New Zealand—namely, the calling of a public meeting for the passing of certain resolutions, the fourth of which is—'That on the 31st of December the importation and sale of spirits shall cease, and that the stock then on hand shall be exported.' Mr Busby being invited to call a public meeting accordingly most unaccountably, in our opinion, refused to do so. There aire certain cases, we candidly allow, in which public men in authority must feel themselves puzzled how to act, but how Mr Busby should hesitate in a matter like this, or rather how he should resolve to refuse his sanction of the meeting and his cordial support of its object, we are totally unable to divine. What a glorious opportunity to distinguish himself as a man has he thrown away, and how will he be sunk in his supineness when the resolution is carried, as we doubt not it will shortly, not only in New Zealand, but in every other part of the rational and Christian world. The Sydney Colonist informs us that Governor Bourke has expressed his disapproval of Mr Busby's conduct in the matter. The refusal, we must confess, in the face of the following paragraph, which we extract from his answer to the gentlemen who called upon him to convene and preside at the meeting, is one of the most unaccountable things we have known to proceed from the mouth of a thinking man:—'I beg to assure you that I have learned with no ordinary degree of satisfaction that so many of the British settlers, whose stake is largest in the commercial prosperity of this settlement, have come to the resolution of abandoning a branch of trade which I am well persuaded has been productive of excessive injury to its commercial interests, and which threatens to bring about a change in the character and conduct of the native population most detrimental to its moral condition, and in an equal degree subversive of that degree of security which the persons and property of the British settlers have of late enjoyed.' After this he says, 'I cannot consistently with my duty give my sanction to the fourth resolution in your list, and I must therefore decline, which I do with much regret, to call a meeting with the knowledge that such a resolution is to be preferred at it.' How truly ridiculous is it after this to hear Mr Busby talking and boasting of his anxiety 'that the interests of the settlement should not suffer by any apparent want of unanimity between the respectable settlers and himself on this occasion.'"

Captain Fitzroy, R.N., in Parliamentary Committee, May 11, 1838, states: The missionaries wanted to carry into effect a regulation similar to one in the Society Islands, that no spiritous liquors should be brought into the Islands of New Zealand. Mr Busby would not be party to such a rule, he said it was an unnecessary measure. A considerable degree of discussion, and not a little animosity, was excited in consequence of that difference, but whether there was any other cause for discord I am not aware.

The first licensing ordinance made applicable to New Zealand was dated February 10, 1842. Hours for sale of liquor 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays and holidays. On payment of an additional £10 the hour was extended to midnight. A penalty of £50 was provided for breaches of the act.

The first mention made of shebeening in New Zealand is in 1852. In a list of Europeans, natives, and half-castes residing at Oue, New River, and Aparima, it is stated incidentally that Owen M'Shane and George Printz had "large spirit: stills." From other sources of information we learn that the whaling stations in the neighbourhood were supplied with a deleterious description of spirits.