NO-LICENSE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 263, 30 July 1908, Page 2

NO-LICENSE.

• , 1 WILL IT BENEFIT THE WORKER? j . It is to bo regrotted that the Labour Conference should have allowed itself to pass a I somewhat hurried, resolution in support of ' No'-Licenso as a means to.State control. The' ; end in view -is a laudablo one, no doubt, but ' tho proposed .means cannot be commended >- ; cither as being likely to achieve its purpose, .or as being.' beneficial to the worker. - : - \ . Class Legislation. - • ■ ; Nothing l is mpre abhorrent to tho Labour ; party than class legislation, and : yet the i Labour Conference has unthinkingly pledged itself to supp'ort the most bare-faced piece of . ' olass tyranny ever, foisted on the! democracy. yhat does a No-License vote mean?:,:. Not .'. prohibition,'certainly. : It means that while I all licenses wholesale and retail-for the salo . ( .' of liquor aro'abolished iii th'e district liquor j in. any, quantity purchased, outside' may be •« 'sent',into tho district so long as this amount' ' ! so'purchased is not less than two gallons. ; .;{ Drynursing tho Worker. ' There is the sting. , You may purchase-any larger quantity thaii two gallons that the . ■>. length of your purse permits, but you; must : j -liot purchase less. There is 110 suggestion that it is illegal to drink, it is only made • illegal to purchase in small quantities.'' If . '. you are rich, you suffer nothing more'.,than a little inconvenienco; but if the money. y.Ou ' have left _ after . paying for necessaries is . ' small, it is impossible'for you to get drink at all, unless you patronise the' sly-grog, seller, and condone an illegal traffic. The ,pro- . hibitionist ' in/'his capacity of dryuurso to the worker will" probably console you by telling | you' that you are better without it. But that is a' matt-er entirely for your own judgment, . i and yet you are denied a chance of cxercis- ..■■■■ ih'g that judgment.. Why? For no other reason than .that you are unable, to lay -out the capital necessary, to purchase the. mini-- j mum quantity allowed' by law. . In "other , words, you are penalised for being poor."' :' i A Creat. Economist's Opinion.—.. >: .The position was finely summed up by no less a writer than John Stuart Mill, in his '■ immortal essay on . "Liberty." ■■ ■' . "The limitation in number," lie' said, of beer and spirit houses, for , the express purpose of rendering' them more difficult of access, ana diminishing the occasions of temp- ■, -tation, not only exposes all to • an ; inconvenience because thore aro somo ' by .whoni ' tho facility would rbo : I abused, but js suited only to a stats ' I of society in which the labouring. glasses aro avowedly treated as cliil- i dren or savages, and placed under"' an education of restraint, to v fit' ! them : for future admission to the ' i privileges of freedom. This is not ; i the principle on which tins labouring i classes are professedly governed in ■ - any freo "country; : and no person '! who se.ts dVie value on freedom will' . ; givo his'adhesion to'their being so 1 governed, unless after all efforts nave . been exhausted to educate them for j freedom" and govern them as freemen, and it lias, been definitively" ! proved that they can only be gov-' j enicd as children.", ' Tho. Labour Conference, no tfoubt, had ' ■ not the slightest intention of sanctioning .- tho principle that tho Nov; Zealand worker - , can only be governed as a child, but that i in effect is w s hat their hastily considered ' ! resolution amounts to.' C 905 '•