SALE OF LIQUOR

Grey River Argus, 1 March 1945, Page 4

SALE OF LIQUOR

Methodist Church

FAVOURS NON-PRIVATE CONTROL.

F.A. DUNEDIN, February 28. Most of this afternoon's session of the annual conference of the Methodist Church of New Zealand was occupied with a discussion on the temperance section of public questions report. The main question was whether the Methodist Church should continue advocacy of complete national prohibition, or whether it should, for the present, accord its support to practical proposals for a controlled sale of liquor. The convener of the public questions committee, Rev. R. Dudley (Christchurch) moved the following motion, which was carried, after a long discussion: “That, while recognising that the findings of the InterChurch Conference on the Royal Commission to inquire into the licensing laws do not give all that we desire, the conference be recommended to approve such findings 'as embodying oractical proposals.” *An inter-church conference was held at Lower Hutt in August last. It unanimously decided to recommend to the Government that the State Purchase and Control issue be eliminated from the ballot paper, substituting some form of trust control or corporate control, and that the electors be given an opportunity of a straightout vote between national continuance and national prohibition, while, at the same time, deciding whether, in the event of continuance being carried, the liquor sales should be under corporate control, was meant the manuunder private ownership. It was also decided that, by trust control or corpoate control, was meant the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating liquor under the management of a public utility corporation. Mr T B. Haydon (Invercargill) said it was not fair to condemn the Invercargill Trust while it was still in its infancy. . . “We are not throwing away one ol the essential principles of our church, which is national prohibition,” said Rev. L. Hayman (Hokitika). “We know drinking must go on, but we must, try to improve matters.” The solution for the present, therefore, he said, was some form of trust control or of corporate control.