DOMINION HOTELS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 187, 10 August 1925, Page 10

DOMINION HOTELS

THE LICENSING ISSUES

REFORM PARTY'S POLICY.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Sunday.

The Dominion conference of the NewZealand Licensing Reform Association completed its business yesterday. Archdeacon Williams presided. The report of the Dominion executive traversed the work of the organisation since its inception, and recorded the fact that repeated efforts had been made to secure licensing legislation. The following remits were carried: (1) That the conference confirms the action of the Dominion executive in publicly protesting against the attempt of the New Zealand Alliance to secure hy means of pledges obtained from candidates for election the control of Parliament, and endorses the statement that while the New Zealand Licensing Reform Association seeks no pledges itself, it will use every means in its power to prevent the Parliament of New Zealand from becoming subservient to the dictates of an outside organisation; (2) that this conference decides to organise the association on an electoral district basis for the purpose of preventing the return to Parliament of members pledged to the prohibitionists and generally to forward the objects of this association: (3) that this association firmly maintains the right of the electors to the third issue of "reform" as between prohibition and a continuance of the existing conditions, and again advances the corporate control proposal as a substitute for the existing third issue of State purchase and control; (4) that the public be invited to join, as members in the work of the association in the advocacy of corporate control, and other reforms of the licensing laws and to subscribe to the general funds of the association to enable it to become an effective force for the promotion of true temperance in the Dominion as opposed to prohibition; (5) that this conference is opposed to the application of the preferential system of voting to any ballot paper which includes the issue of prohibition for the reason that prohibition, meaning total abolition, is in itself a clear-cut and final issue admitting of no qualification whatever; (6) that in the event of there being no licensing legislation this session, and of corporate control not being submitted as an issue at the approaching poll, this conference, while recognising that the organised licensed trade must in its own interests support the issue of continuance, urges other bodies associated to request their members and supporters to vote for the third issue of State purchase and control as an indication to Parliament' that there is a strong demand for the reform of the licensing system.