Temperance Column.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 61, 6 July 1908, Page 3

Temperance Column.

[Published by Arrangement]

THE NO-LICENSE PARTI.

ITS ANNUAL PARLIAMENT.

THE WELLINGTON CONVENTION.

WHAT IT DID.

From the Lyttelton Times, June 22,1908. The annual No-license Convention, which is the Parliament of the Nolicense party, was held in Wellington last week. It dealt with a large quantity of business brought before it by delegates who went from all parts of New Zealand, and its deliberations and decisions will have a powerful influence on the members of the party in the campaign this year. The Rev. E. Walker, who is one of the prominent members of the party, and who has returned to Christohurch after attending the convention, stated to a reporter on Saturday that one of the most important deoisions arrived at was that every issue submitted at the local option polls should be deoided by an absolute majority, and that there should also be a dominion vote, determined in the same way. In 1895 and 1896, he said, the House of Representatives passed a measure giving a dominion option, or, as it was then called, a oolonial or national option, practically unanimously. On both occasions the proposal was rejected by the Legislative Council. The Nolicense party ftill persistently demanded the measure that the people's representatives had been willing to give. la the intervening years there had not been as much political agitation in that respect as there might have been, as the party's energies had been thrown mainly into its efforts to make the best use of the local option powers. But the No-lioense party, as a party, have never acquiesced in the three-fifths obstruction placed upon the No-lioense issue. When the Bills of 1893 and 1895 were going through the legislature, Sir Robert Stout and other members, representing' tho temperanee sentiment of the country, fought hard for the bare majority. It waß now felt that the disabilities imposed upon the temperance reform oould be endured no longer. Therefore, Bills would he submitted to the present Parliament providing for an absolute majority at the local option polls, and fer a dominion option, also with a bare majority. There would alio be an attempt to remedy defects in the general licensing laws. Amongst reforms in that class there was the abolition' of the bottle license. It was supposed that that had been dealt wjth in the Aot of 1895, but the Courts ruled otherwise. It was sought to repeal' Subsection 8 of Section 3 of the Act of 1881, by which any person might sell cider, perry and wine made from New Zealand fruits in quantities not less than two gallons, it was stated that a Government officer, the vitioulturist of the Agricultural .Department, employed travellers to obtain orders for New Zealand wines. There was a very strong feeling that the Government should not traffio in alcoholic beverages in any way. It was felt that the licenses acquired by the Government in connection with hotels conducted by the Tourist Department Bhould be cancelled at ence. S elements had been made indicating that in at least one of these hotels the trade in liqmor was carried on in a manner that constituted a sorry example of what might happen if all liquor bare were State-owned. It had been deoided that the party J should concentrate all its efforts upon the return of candidates who were prepared to meet the demands he had ■amed. The party would ask that the electoral rolls should be amended so that the supplementary rolls should olobc at least three weeks before the issue of the writs, If that was done, it would not be possible to rush bogus names on the roils at the last moment, when, as at present, they could not be removed.

In reply to a question, Mr Walker said that there were several very Strang reasons why the party should regard the bare majority as an important one. In everv district, there was a residuum, composed of those who were interested in the trade, those who had been demoralised by it, and those who were governed by appetite and selfish interests, and they were likely to always resist moral and gooial reform. There were many districts where these would be found in the neighbourhoed ef the three-fifth border line and constitute permanent defenoe efthe trade, and in'some oases the moral and social interests of the district were handed over to a minority ooDßisting iu a large part of the worßt elements in the communities. The whole of-Canada, by the Scott Act,

Jn past sime the first thiag done io a burn oy spald was to exclude the air. To do this the victim t9 either apply a paste 01" oil and flour or else bandage the scalded part, thus adding to his sufferings. All that is now necessary i§ to apply Chamberiuiji'i Pain Balm, This Liniment gives immediate relief, also heals the part in one-third ihe time taken by any other application; but what is more wonderful still is that thjere is never any scar left after Chamberloin's Pain Balm : is Jbor eeie

under the Coafadaratioa law, (iiud loco.l option by abare majority, but recently in Ontario and Manitoba, the trade, under proVinaial enaotmdnts, was strong enough to have a threefifths vote substituted. Ontario and Manitoba, which had had experience of No-lioense by bare majority, proved that it was sufficient to seoure both general stability and a proper enforcement, and the retrograde step stirred up very strong feeling. In Manitoba the Liberal party pledged .itself to a bare majority, and the Government had to bring down a. Bill restoring the popular right, whieh Was now law again. There was determined agitation in Ontario, and the Government there would probably take a step in the same direction. At present Ontario was the only part of the North American Continent, comprising the United States and Canada, where local option was anything but the bare majority. Minority rule was uudemooratio, and the three-fifths majority had already obstructed reform in New Zealand. It was not generally realised that the three-fifth majority required the temperance party to poll half as many votes again as the liquor party, aa three-fifths was half as much again as two-fifths. If three thousand people voted in a district, it required 600 more to vote on the temperance side to win than on the liquor side; and if it were a dominion poll and 800,000 persons voted, the temperance party would have to get 60,000 more votes than the liquor party. It was a monstrously inequitable provision to protect the trade. A leading article in the same issue of the Lyttelton Times said:— " The Bev. Edward Walker made it quite clear to our representative on Saturday that the No-lioenso Convention intended to make ( the ! bare majority 1 the principal plank iu its politioai platform at the approaching parliamentary election, and we may be sure that the prohibitionists will keep this question very prominently before the publio during the next few months. Hitherto, there have been divisions in their own ranks on the question, and Mr Walker had to explain to our representative that the No-license party, 'as a party,' had never acquiesced in the three-fifths majority provision : but the deoision of their leaders is likely to have great weight with the rank and file of the party, and we shall not be surprised to see them demanding the bare majority with something like unanimity. Our own opinion still is that the oause of temperance would suffer by this amendment of the law." The Article then proceeded to argue the case, favoring a reduction of the three-fifths handicap. The following letter appeared next day in reply :

THE BARE MAJORITY.

[To the Editor, J

The cry of " instability," " seesaw," etc., need frighten no one, not even the most timid, and in support of this assertion lee me quote the oase of Cambridge in the United States, a city of 100,000 inhabitants. lam in poHsesbiou of all the figures for license and no-licen&e for twenty-five years. In 1881 the first vote was taken and resulted in a majority of six for license, which majority increased during the following four years. In 1886 No-license was carried by 57 per cent of the voters. This majority was less during the following eight years, when it again reached a 57 per cent vote, and in 1898 the No-license party polled a three-fifths majority, having enjoyed the blessings of Nolicense for twelve years under an absolute or bare majority vote. This majority has steadily increased, until n 1905 the No-license party polled 65 per cent of the voters. Had it been necessary to- poll a three-fifths majority in the first instanoe it is quite possible Cambridge would be still oursed by her liquor bars, for many people can only be convinced of the blessings of No-lioense by actual experience, Kaiapoi has carried a majority for No-license of over 500, 700j 600, at the last thiee eieotions, and for ail those nine years has had her liquor bars in full blast doing their demoralising work, in spite of the will of a large majority of the electors, and as Cambridge's by no means the only example of the benefits of an absolute majority, so neither is Kaiapoi the only example of the wicked injustice of a three-fifths majority. Thirtyfive electorates in New JSeajand should be enjoying No-license if her people were all free and equal voters, and it is quite time that equality of voting power was established. —I am, etc., JUSTICE.