CORRUPTION ALLEGED

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 January 1927, Page 5

CORRUPTION ALLEGED

A MEMBER’S CHARGES.

IN N.S.W. ASSEMBLY AGAINST LIQUOR. TRADE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. Received 11.10 a.m. to-day. SYDNEY, Jan. 29. In the Assembly, the Hon. W. J. McKell, Minister of justice, secured leave to introduce an amendment of the Licensing Bill, providing for the legalising of the s aje of liquor up to nine o’clock at nignt with meals. During the debate, Mr. Lane, the Nationalist member for Balmain, said that the liquor trade sinse 1916 haa been able to manipulate every Government that had been in power. He understood that £9OOO sterling was offered to the Labour movement if the Government would open the hotels until eight o’clock at night. The Bill, which also provides for the discontinuance of payments by license as to the compensation fund in respect to hotels which were delicensed by the Licenses Reduction Board, was read a first time. . . . , Mr Lane, in the course of -his allegations, said that the liquor . trade was the most lawless industry in the State. Flagrant breaches of the law r were committed by it, and by some means or other, it was able to manipulate the Ministers of the State. The liquor trade had put funds into the •, a hour movement before the last election for the purpose of obtaining concessions in liquor legislation during the present Parliament. The Hon, Mr. McKell and Mr. Bavin hotly repudiated the allegations of corruption.