Temperance campaigners were tireless producers of printed propaganda denouncing liquor and the liquor trade. This 1905 cartoon shows Zealandia, the personification of New Zealand, emptying liquor barrels, with a scroll in hand representing the supposed will of the voting public. The 'shades' (ghosts) of failed civilisations look on and ask whether their nations would have endured had they acted like her. The cartoon anticipates the day liquor would be prohibited nationwide – but this day never dawned.
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
A-313-1-008
Ink drawing by Herbert Beecroft
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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