LICENSE V. NO-LICENSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 105, 2 May 1908, Page 7

LICENSE V. NO-LICENSE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —There is n phase of the licensing subject which I think has not so far had that ventilation which its importance warrants. I refer, Sir, to the question of the No-license vote coupled with retaliation. What we should expect, and what we often get, are two different things, and so it happens with the Nolicense issue. On thie issue we have a right to expect a genuine vote from the people on the broad principles of the question, irrespective of other considerations, and this, no doubt, -was the anticipated ultimate result in the mind of the legislature when provision was first made for the taking of the Local Option polls. But, Sir, we do not get this genuine vote, we get in a great many cases instead a retaliative or combative vote, given to suit some individual personal motive, and, by reasou of that, licenses all over the Dominion are placed in an intolerable, unfair, and unßritish posi* tion. It may be said, and with some degree of truth, that retaliation can be, and is, applied to other businesses, but then, no other business has a No-license vote to contend with, and so, the conditions are neither equal nor similar. As an example, a person may have a dislike for some particular grocer or draper, and, by reason of that dislike, he simply refrains from doing business with him. The same individual may also have a dislike for some hotel or hotelkeeper, and then, he not only ceases doing business with him, but he is also prepared by voting No-licence, to not only injure or perhaps rain that one licensee, but, in addition, every other one in the electorate to which he happens to belong. It is a fact that, under existing conditions, a licensee can scarcely think, speak, look, or act, without meeting this form of retaliation. If he refuses a person a drink he meets it, if he doesn't do co, he meeta it. If he has occasion to reprimand or dispense with an employe, he meets it 3, and if he doesn't do so he meets ii. If he has occasion to reprimand or dispense with ah employe, he meets it, a-nd if he doesn't do so, he meets it. Ii it is'not convenient for him to deal with some particular tradesman, he meets it. and if he does do so, ho still meets itIf he attempts to dabble with or coneider municipal or political affairs he meets it, and if he doesn't do so, he still meets it. In short, Sir, at hie every turn this retaliative influence is ever present. The position then, Sir, is not only intolarablc, but it is of the unjust, inequitable a-nd impossible order, such as no Britisher should be exposed or subject to, and I have no hesitation in saying that it ia nothing short of disgraceful, that a law which provides for, and permits of such treatment to any section Of the community should be allowed to remain on tha statute books of this frequently called democratic Dominion. —I am, etc., J. S. PALMER. Auckland, Ist May, 1908.