Don't Strike Out the Top Line

DESCRIPTION: "Don't strike out the top line, Rub out the other two, Don't be ruled by fanatics, To liberty be true. Don't let silly weaklings rule Who can't themselves control, Don't let go your precious rights." "Hold fast by liberty, The watchword of our race."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1896 (Ad in the Timaru Herald, according to Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ)
KEYWORDS: drink political nonballad New Zealand
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ, p. 95, "Don't Strike Out the Top Line" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Strike Out the Top Line" (subject of prohibition in New Zealand)
NOTES [360 words]: As Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ describe it, New Zealand voters had the option, every three years starting in 1894, to vote on prohibition, and they had three choices, from top to bottom:
CONTINUATION (maintaining the current number of liquor licenses)
REDUCTION (giving authorities the right to shut down up to a quarter of licenses)
NO LICENSE (complete elimination of alcohol)
Voting consisted of what is now called "approval voting" -- saying which choices were acceptable. This song tries to take advantage of that situation. If the vote for NO LICENSE failed to reach the three-fifths majority needed for approval, then those ballots which listed both NO LICENSE and REDUCTION would count toward REDUCTION. If, as was possible, some who were pro-liquor voted for CONTINUATION and REDUCTION (on the grounds that REDUCTION was better than shutting things down entirely) and some voted only for REDUCTION (on the grounds that they didn't object to drink but thought there were too many pubs), then by only "striking out the top line" the prohibitionists could at least earn a reduction, which (by their standards) was better than nothing.
It doesn't seem to have worked; in the 1896 poll, at least, CONTINUATION won easily, with NO LICENSE slightly ahead of REDUCTION.
Even when New Zealand fixed (?) the voting system, their relationship with liquor remained complicated. According to Gordon Ell, Kiwiosities: An A-Z of New Zealand traditions & Folklore, New Holland Publishers, 2008, p. 136, a phenomenon called "Booze Barns" eventually came about: "During the 1960s the perverse logic of the Licensing Control Commission re-allocated liquor licenses from many ageing corner pubs to new hotels in the suburbs, surrounded by car parking. To enjoy a drink you had to drive. Huge public bars, detached from motel-like accommodation, provided the venue for mass drinking... The idea of a quiet, sociable drink was stifled by rock bands and the milling throng. Such 'booze barns' have deservedly lost custom" as liquor laws made it easier for local pubs and restaurants to serve alcohol.
According to Ell, p. 74, the last "dry towns" gave up in 1999. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: BaRo096

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