THE LICENSING POLL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1938, Page 8

THE LICENSING POLL

In the intense concentration on political issues which has characterised the present election campaign voters will be well advised not to overlook another important issue, social rather than political, which will be presented to them simultaneously. This is the licensing issue. Of recent years this issue has tended more and more to slide into the background. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the questions of National Continuance, State Control, and National Prohibition have lately been almost forgotten. Few people today are likely to remember that on one or two occasions New Zealand was very close to sanctioning by the requisite majority vote Prohibition as total as that which I was embodied in the American Constitution by the Eighteenth Amendment and, after a trial of over a dozen years, abandoned. All over the world the tide of public opinion seems to have turned against drastic legislative remedies for the ills which arise from the abuse of liquor. It is recognised that these are to be met much better by individual temperance in use thari by the attempted mass compulsion of Prohibition. In view of this tendency and in view of the difficulties that inevitably arise with the imposition from without of drastic restrictions on individual liberty in matters like this we have always felt that the proper approach to the problem is through the inculcation in the individual of the necessity for self-control, temperance, and moderation. This remains our opinion, with the proviso that the liquor trade is capable also of improvement and reforms from within. No doubt this task might have been tackled more energetically, with the aid of Parliament, but for the fear of Prohibition and the restraint on the freedom of action of members of Parliament imposed by pledges given during election campaigns. We are glad to note that this form of pledge seems no longer to figure prominently in the average candidate's commitments. Nevertheless, the citizen cannot afford to neglect this part of his duty as an elector oh election day. He is asked to record his vote on the issues of National Continuance, State Control, and National Prohibition, in that order, by striking out the two for which he does not desire to vote. Only by a full vote can public opinion on these questions be accurately represented. The decision will be not on the number of potential voters, but on the number of votes actually cast, and electors who do not wish to see Prohibition forced upon New Zealand by accident must remember that their votes count only if they are recorded.