MODERATE LEAGUE PROTESTS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 136, 5 December 1918, Page 3

MODERATE LEAGUE PROTESTS

The Central Executive of the Naw Zealand Moderate League met yesterday to consider the position arising out of the passage through Parliament ctf the Licensing Amendment Bill, providing for a special referendum ou tho question of prohibition with compensation to be held early next year. Tho following motions were carried:— "That the New Zealand Moderate League regrets that it has been decided i to phinge New Zealand into the bitterness and turmoil of a special liquor referendum, particularly in view of the fact that there can be no justification for this course as a war measure." "That the Moderate League, representing the large body of moderate thought throughout the Dominion, emphatically protests against the absolute ignoring by Government and Parliament of tho rights of the moderate section in deliberately refusing to provide an issue of State ownership in the special referendum, such issue being the only one which would honestly convey the convictions of the moderate public." "That Government and Parliament by their action in forcing a special referendum on the bare issues of continuance or prohibition with compensation have placed the moderate public in the position of having their rights bartered away by compromise between the two extreme parties—prohibition and the 'trade.'" > "That the Bill as passed by Parliament is a travesty of justice, and, violates every principle of democracy in that it declares the arbitrary dictum that a vote in, favour of prohibition ia to mean prohibition for aJI time, giving the people no right at any time hereafter to bring about reinstatement under any system. "That tho rights of soldiers to vote on the questions to be submitted at the referendum nre not safeguarded, as the section of the Bill relating thereto U

rendered valueless by the provision that the validity of the referendum will not be affected by any omissions or failure to secure the soldiers' votes, thereby enabling the administration to adopt with impunity any slip-shod measures in taking same." "That further, the members of the executive, as citizens, protest against the manner in which important legislation of all kinds, -izifcally affecting the future of the Dominion, is being rushed through the House, and the interests of the country and its people subverted to political expediency."