NEW SOUTH WALES LIQUOR REFERENDUM

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 288, 5 September 1928, Page 6

NEW SOUTH WALES LIQUOR REFERENDUM

WHAT IT PROVES. Referring to I he result of the New South Wales liquor referendum, aud to the statement of the president of the New Zealand Alliance that the result had been expected, Mr. D. M. Findlay, president .of the New Zealand Moderate League, aud vice-presi-dent of the New Zealand Licensing Reform Association, said that Mr. Todd’s statement was an admission of tho obvious futility of the prohibition movement in British communities. His attribution of the overwhelming defeat of prohibition in New South Wales to tlio condition of compensation did not square with tlie confidence expressed 'by the New Zealand Alliance in Kill), when, as the result of the war-time prohibition agitation, a. special poll was granted to tlie alliance on die issue of prohibition with compensation. It was deplorable to find that section of the community which, by its never-ending agitation and political activity, was responsible for the tremendous expense and social disturbance of tlie prohibition referenda, calmly admitting that it expected defeat. This constituted a strong argument for calling a halt in the constant recurrence of the. referenda on prohibition in New Zealand. Poll after poll had repeatedly disclosed the determination of the people of this country to have nothing to do with it. The question of prohibition lay like a fallen tree across tlie road to real reform and temperance.