AUSTRALIAN OPINIONS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXII, Issue 8246, 11 December 1911, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN OPINIONS.

"DEATH AND BURIAL OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC."

Per Press Association—Copyright. SYDNEY, December 10. Mr Complin, secretary of the New South Wales Alliance, is jubilant at the New Zealand vote. He says that nobody can deny that a grand victory has been obtained. With the assist-, ance of the Catholic vote prohibition probably could have been carried with a good deal to spare. Mr Tennyson Smith, temperance advocate, predicts that the liquor trade will be badly beaten at the next elec-j tions. . ; ''_" \ ' ;. " Officials of the Licensed Victuallers' Association declined to discuss the subject on the incomplete figures. (Received December 11, 9.20 a.m.) SYDNEY, December 1.1. , Canon Boyce considers that the New Zealand prohibition vote is a magnificent moral victory. In the Empire this generation has probably seen no greater moral victory. It. looks as if next election will mean the death and burial of the whole liquor traffic in New Zealand. The "Daily Telegraph,'" commenting on the elections, says; the. result is a double surprise success—the -Opposition making, up so much leeway and the strength of the prohibition vote. The latter suggests that the time is coming when New Zealand will go absolutely "dry." When; only /about ten thousand votes ' on a total poll of nearly half a million v/ere required to ensure this,., it-is a fair conclusion that the writing is on the wall.- -Dealing with the Labour vote, it says the polling shows that the vote is beginning' to organise. The " Herald,'.'.'..says the voting has so far disclosed a state of feeling, which must be as. unwelcome to the Prime Minister as it was unexpected by the people in general. If the Ministry falls, it will do so rather by automatic loss of public interest than by any other cause. The prohibition vote; is as remarkable in its way as the par-; liamentary polling. Though the three-; fifths majority has not been secured,it is so near as to give the liquor trade an extremely precarious basis of popxilar support.