The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1909.

Evening Star, Issue 14002, 8 March 1909, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1909.

To-mobrow the Dunedin electors will be called upon to deThe Issue for cide whether the duties To-morrow, of the Licensing Committee shall be performed by open-minded men in a judicial spirit, as the law (inferentially at least) directs, or whether the work shall be done in a cut-and-dried fashion by partisans who ostentatiously deny the necessity of preserving a judicial frame of mind. An astute attempt has been made to persuade the electors who voted for Reduction on November 17 that they can only maintain their consistency by voting for the so-called Temperance candidates to-morrow. Palpable refutation has no effect upon the assurance of the chief controversialist of the No-license party. In our issue of Saturday Mr G. B. Nicholls, in answer to our contention that the vote for Reduction in November did not necessarily or even presumably imply a desire for the adoption of the maximum rate, observed with characteristic coolness:

The reason why I, and everybody else, know that the people anticipated and desired the full % per cent, reduction is this: That no fewer than 10,130 people struck out the top line. thus voting for both Reduction and No-license. In other words, the vote cast by these 10,130 people was that all licenses should be refused, or failing that that the full 25 per cent, should be refused.

Note the " everybody else," so typical of the random presumptuousness of extremist advocates. We shall not copy Mr Nicholls's methods and say that " everybody " knows that the vote of November 17 merely implied a wish for a reduction of licenses, without any indication of a minimum or maximum rate; but we confidently submit that (in this matter as in others) Mr Nicholls's roundabout sophistry leaves/:

the soundness of our argument' unim-' paired. Perhaps, indeed, wo go too far in admitting that the November vote was the expression of a deliberate desire for Eeduction. The habit of indiscriminately " crossing out the top line," in obedience to parrot-like instructions, lends itself to looseness of thought and purpose; and there is good reason for supposing that many supporters of No-license thus gave a second vote for Reduction in- a mechanical fashion without really beKeving that the public interest would be served by the withdrawal of a few more licenses. Our own opinion is that the time has come for deleting the Reduction issue from the voting papers. Be this as it may, any elector who voted for Reduction four months ago may quite consistently vote for the nOn-partisan candidates to-morrow. Those candidates have felt justified io reissuing their original manifesto without alteration, in spite of the torrent of criticism to which it has been subjected by the devotees of the doctrine of injudicial pledges; and they have added a further "appeal to the electors" which can hardly fail to produce a favorable impression upon thoughtful and practical minds. The calumnies and invidious insinuations of the other side are unequivocally ansvrered. The antijudicial party persist in alleging that the five gentlemen who have served the City so well and so independently since 1906 are virtually the candidates of the brewer and the publican, and that they are able to count upon all the financial resources of the "trade." What say Messrs Arkle, Braithwaite, Burnett, Crust, and Small? Whatever expenses we incur we shall pay out of our own pockets, as wo did last election. Nor were they repaid to us, nor will the present expenses we incur.

Our nomination papers were handed in by ourselves, and our nominators do not belong to the trade.

And we may observe, in passing, that tho oft-repeated statement that the nomination papers of tho Moderate candidates in 1906 were handed in by a member of a brewery firm is as groundless as most of the assertions that have been made on behalf of the extremists during the present campaign. Mr Arkle and his colleagues promise to make strict and impartial inqniry before fixing tho number of houses to be closed, and the intimation that they may '• close any number from three to ten " is in perfect conformity with this principle, thougli Mr Nichclls affects to be perplexed. The Moderates are pledged neither to the maximum nor to tho minimum rate. They arc pledged to nothing save to tho dispassionate and unprejudiced discharge of a judicial duty. They are not the men whom tho "trade" would choose. But, to quote tho latest manifesto—

But there is a tkird party never considered by extremists, and that is tho # great Moderate party, which we desire to serve, and wliich, if they exert their power, can hold tho scales of justice evenly between Prohibition and the Liquor party. To this party wo confidently appeal for support. We aro aware that tho No-license candidates make a profession of judicial intention; but their premature decision to take away ten licenses without investigating local conditions and necessities is a poor earnest of performance. The convenience of visitors and the travelling public is nothing to them: ten houses must go, though people from the country at Show or Cup time should have to walk the streets all night. Moreover, apart from the question of the number of licenses to be withdrawn, the experience of tho past does not engender much confidence in tho impartiality and judicial wisdom of tho quintet when it comes to deciding who tho individual victims of reduction shall be. We have not forgotten the closing of houses that obviously supplied a public need, in respect of accommodation and general requirements, and the immunity given to other houses and licensees of a notoriously shady reputation. There were some curious rumors in 1903 concerning the methods and motives of the Licensing Committee of that day, and Mr Nicholas makes a big mistake in supposing that tho carrying out of the last Reduction mandate was generally regarded as satisfactory. By the way, we shall not waste space or time iu dwelling on the wondrous argumentative contortions by which the Noficonse champion seeks to stigmatise the Moderate candidates as intruders. Wo said all that was required on that point last week, and shall only repeat that Messrs Arkle, Braithwaite, Burnett, Crust, and Small were accepted in 1906 by the electors, who were far from holding that they had "thrust themselves in where they were not required." The electors, having regard to all the circumstances of the situation, will be well advised to renew the choice tomorrow.