The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1906.

Evening Star, Issue 12762, 15 March 1906, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1906.

We were congratulating ourselves yesterday on haying done with licensThe Licensing j n g controversies for nearly Election Again, three years, but it must be confessed that we ought to have known better. We should have made allowance for the notorious inability of Nolicense advocates to take either a defeat or a criticism with due docility. We have had ample proof of this weakness in times past, and to-day Mr A. S. Adams furnishes fresh evidence in point, lest we forget. Mr Adams's letter will be found in another column. We shall not term it characteristic, because really he does himself much less than justice. For once in a way his strong logical faculty must have been in abeyance. In this curious and somewhat irrelevant rejoinder there is not a, trace of the argumentative acumen which wo have often admired and praised. On the other hand, there are clear indications of the temper -which discomfituro is apt to excite. Wo feel sure that it is only a temporary loss, and that the protagonist of the Dunedin Prohibitionists will soon again be displaying his old force, as well as that measure of reasonableness which is sometimes granted even to No-license extremists. Mr Adams starts in rather dramatic strain: "You have championed the cause "of the successful candidates for the City '" Licensing Committee." True; and perhaps he will permit us to- note that we have also consistenly championed the democratic rights of the Temperance party—earning on many occasions the undisguised animosity of then- opponents. We have censured Trade and Temperance representatives alike when they seemed to us to be going astray —careless of the fact that this impartial method wins little popularity from either side. We blamed the No-license party for rejecting the offer of a fair comprromise, and assuredly we have nothing to withdraw in consequence of Mr Adams's amazing defence of their policy. The Temperance party declined to recognise the right claimed by the " trade" to nominate Two members of the Committee, whose duty it is to keep them within the law. On the same grounds they might claim the right to nominate half the police force which is to detect and punish breaches of the law. It was an immoral proposal. If this means anything at all it means that men like Mr Braithwaite and Mr Small were prepared to accept the role of publicans' candidates in the most invidious sense of the term, and that, if they (or any two of the five Moderate candidates) had been appointed to the licensing bench along with three of the No-license party, they would practically have occupied 'the status of corrupted policemen. The whole of Mr Adams's letter is vitiated by unjust and offensive suggestions of this kind, and he must not be surprised if somewhat vigorous language is used in reply. It is nothing to us, whether the nomination, papers of the Moderate candidates were handed to the returning officer by a member of a firm of brewers—save in so far as fresh emphasis is given to the fact that the Trade are sincere in supporting a policy of strict control. In old days the Licensed Victuallers' Asseciatk>n would have selected a very different cUbb of cand>iai*B—," Trad©" nwnmeefi in,

a well-understood sense. Taught by salutary experience and public opinion, and wisely counselled by Mr Thomson, - they have changed their tactics and nominated—whom? Five unattached citizens of proved worth and independence—men who would Bcorn to wink at lawlessness or to tolerate laxness of control. Will Mr Adams declare in so many words that this tribute to the integrity and impartiality of the five gentlemen elected on Tuesday is unwarranted? Will ha say that they are likely to act in the spiriii/of corrupt policemen? If not, then all his labored pgints about nomination and so forth—his 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6—are valueless, and he would have done well to bear defeat and critical comment in silence. "Did you understand tho position at all?" he asks. Yes, details apart, we understood it pretty well; and so, we venture to think,- did the electors. It is easy to say now that "no attempt was made to make the election a real contest." If there was no real contest, why were the old Committee nominated? Why were they so obviously chagrined on Tuesday night? In point of fact, the poll was by no means a poor one, considering that it was not hold on General Election day. Mr Nicholls (who also favors us with a protesting epistle) observes that his party only polled onethird of their votes—their Local Option vote, that is. And what about the other party? They only polled a few'hundreds more. These after-the-event interpretations aro altogether too flimsy. Wo must be allowed to rcgarcTthe contest as a real one. Even the fact that Mr Nicholls was not in Dunedin is interesting rather than conclusive in the other direction. And not only was the contest genuine: the result was a victory for fairness and temperance in all things.