LICENSING REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 5

LICENSING REFORM.

THE NEW PROPOSALS. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The proposed new licensing legislation almost overshadows in interest the Budget Tevelations. Members are astonished at the outcome of the conference between members of the trade and the No-license party, and many are asking themselves where they stand. Almost unanimously they decline to make any public statements in the nature of interviews, but in the lobbies the subject is even more extensively debated than the new land or taxation proposals. In a few cases members have informed mc that they are quite willing to accept the suggested compromise, inasmuch as it relieves them of all responsibility and future worry in the matter. It is amongst those partisans personally interested in licensing reform that the proposed new legislation has aroused most interest. Amongst a number there is a feeling of resentment that they should never have been consulted. The real cuuse for contention and discontent, however, is the feeling which prevails that the Xo-license party has come out of the deal very badly. There is in the House of Representatives quite a number of members who are warm advocates of no-licerise, and there is a firm belief amongst most of these that the trade has scored everything and the "tea party" nothing. This is founded on the conviction that the huge army of moderate thinking people which has voted no-license in the past, will never vote no-license in the future. Judging from the -statements in the lobbies, I have little hesitation in expressing the opinion that the new licensing proposals have not the slightest chance in the world of finding their way, as at present constituted, on to the Statute Book. It is interesting to note the names of those who took part in the recent conference. The delegates of the trade were Messrs. Mai tin Kennedy (chairman of the. Brewers' Association, and managing director of Staples and Co., Ltd.), Mr. Leo Myers (Ehrenfried and Co., Ltd., | Auckland), Mr. O. Nicholson, and Mr. Davis, jun. (Moss Davis and Co.'s Captain Cook Brewery), Mr. Mow bray ' (■Great Northern Brewery), Mr. Greenslade (Speight and Co., Dunedin), Mr. Gibbons (Wanganui), and two representatives of the Licensed Victuallers' Asso- j ciation, one of whom was Mr. Palmer (of Auckland). The No-license party j was represented by t-hreo officers of the; New Zealand Alliance—Mr. Wesley' Spragg (Auckland), and the Revs. A. Dewdney and J. Dawson (Wellington). "FLOUTING THE MODERATE." WELLINGTON, Friday. The " Post," in a loading article on the proposed licensing legislation says: " The exultation of the advocates of cold water over this singular deal becomes the more surprising when one conj trasts it with the panic with which they were afflicted five years ago by the late Mr. Seddon's ingenious advocacy of " Clause 9." That clause was intended to serve as a bomb-shell in the camp of the prohibitionists, and 'so it did. The ingenious air of simple logic about the clause did not blind thUn to the peril that it concealed. They saw that to make the consumption of liquor a crime after no-license had been carried would mean that no-license never would be carried. On that point we stand where we did, but who has so bewitched the prohibitionists in the meantime that they are running in delirious joy down a eteep place into the same sea from which they emerged in mortal terror five years ago? We take leave tq say. that it was the moderate man who caved them then, and that it is their determination to flout the moderate man that •threatens to wreck them now. To talk as though the 221,000 electors who voted no-Wcerise at the last (poll w(fe all convinced devotees of the teetotal Utopia is the greatest mistake in the world. Is it an exaggeration to say if " no-license " had meant "no liquor" as it will if the present compromise reaches the Statute Book, the number might well have been reduced by one-half? Of course, if the prohibitionists choose to wreck their own cause that is their own look-out, but the Government and the legislature have no right to treat this matter as a private litigation, in which there are no interests at all to be regarded, but those of the parties consulted by Dr. Findlay. In the name of common-sense and sober statesmanship. Parliament should reject a compromise which affects far higher and more precious-, rights than those of the nominal parties, and proposes to leave the unhappy elector no alternative but the establishment of an intolerable tyranny on the one hand and the affirmation of the entire licensing system as it stands on the other." BARE MAJORITY WANTED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) FEILDING, Friday. At a public meeting held at Halcombe last night, in connection with the Primitive .Methodist Wellington . District Synodi the following motion. Vas carried: "That this meeting resolves that no legislation will be satisfactory which does not make the issues at both local and Dominion option determinate by the bare majority, to take effect with the least possible delay after the vote is taken, and appeals to the New Zealand Alliance to make it very clear tc . the Government and Parliament that no compromise of the just rights of the people in those rceposu ■ will %». Meept» . ed by the no-license ftrty/