The Licensing Poll.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17629, 5 December 1922, Page 6

The Licensing Poll.

We frequently ihieet with evidence that the issues to bo decided at the, Licensing Poll on Thursday are not so universally ■ understood as they ought to bo. The elector will be required to vote for Continuance, State Purchase and Control, or Prohibition, and he must strike out two lines. If Prohibition receives a bare majority of all the votes , cast, Prohibition will be carried. If Prohibition does not obtain this bare majority, it will be because a majority of the electors are opposed to Prohibition, and Prohibition will be defeated. In the event of the defeat of Prohibition, State Control will be carried if it lias an absolute majority of the votes cast. If ncr issue obtains a majority, then the existing conditions will remain for the present. A great majority of the people who are opposed to Prohibition are in favour of some better method of distributing alcoholic liquor than the existing one, and Mr Massey has given an assurance that the whole

licensing system will be revised by the new Parliament. Those people, therefore, who, not teing Prohibitionists, dislike the Trade in its present form, may confidently rote for eiither State Control or Continuance, knowing that a new and better system is assured. In the past, as is well known, many people who disliked Prohibition yet voted for Prohibition in the belief that the carrying of Prohibition would clear the ground for the building of a new and enlightenec! system of supplying tho people with alcoholic liquor- We have often shown that this belief is a mistaken one, but it will bo useful to do so again. The existing law provides that if Prohibition is carried, there will be no more licensing polls. In order that the • people may have an opportunity to record any change of opinion, fresh leg-

\ islauon to that end will be necessary if Prohibition is carried. Needless to say, tho Prohibitionists, well-organised and vigilant, will make that legislation impossible. The maintenance of Prohibition, and the refusal of any means of escape from it, will be the sole concern of the Prohibitionists, and politics fur them will consist only of the business of preventing the nation from expressing any thange of opinion. A minority of 30 or 40 per cent, of the electors, concentrating on a single issue, can easily dominate a majority which lias other issues to divide them. If Prohibition comes, that is to say, it will come''to stay, even though it may be a grievous failure and an injury to the Dominion. Nobody, therefore, should vote for Prohibition who does not ardently desire Prohibition as a permanency. Ignorance on this point gave Prohibition many votes in 1919. It is desirable that the electors should vote, on so important a question, with their eyes open to all the consequences of whatever result may be recorded.