King Country Chronicle. Wednesday, NOV, 16, 1910. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 312, 16 November 1910, Page 4

King Country Chronicle. Wednesday, NOV, 16, 1910. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The letter which we publish in another column from the Mayor of To Kuiti will serve a good purpose if it brings home to ratepayers the vital importance of registering their votes, whether for or against, at the poll to-morrow, in connection with the Borough loan proposal?. The question is: Should we, or should we not, go forward with this scheme we have all been discussing for months past? We believe it to he a good one, a necessarv one, a desirable one. it bout imiirovemen ts in the borough ours ranks as a third-rate township. With them, the pace of progress is set: population increases; and prosperity follows in its train. From a financial point of view the scheme is sound. The £29,500 loan will be readily met. both interest and sinking fund, out of the Borough resources. As years go 011 and population increases the relative burden in rates becomes lightened. A clear, healthy, sanitary borough, with its copious water supply and its own lighting facilities depends lor its existence on the result of to-morrow s poll.

The other day we drew attention in these columns to some anomalies under which residents of European extraction suffer in the King Country. We tried to show that local option, granted everywhere else in the Dominion, was equally desirable in the Kobe Polae. Mr W. T. Jennings. M.l'., brought up a new clause when the Licensing Kill was before the House, which would have given this great district similar facilities in the way of voting lor or against licenses being granted that every other district has. Unfortunately the proposed amendment was rejected by a somewhat large majority larger, indeed, than when the clause was brought forward before by the member for Taumarunui. At that time, in li'O-l, the proposal only got 29 votes. Last week it only got 10, and it is noticeable that not. only the Premier, but the Leader of the Opposition were both against Mr Jennings amendment. Mr Masses b atlituoc is unexplainabie. consider:!);: that. in 11104 he and most of the members of the Opposition supported the original amendment, which if desirable then, is much more so to-day, when the face of the King Country is changed through the inllux of European settlement. It seems paradoxical, at the

very moment when white men resident in this district are aalcing to be put under exactly the same law as everywhere else obtains, that a native member of the House of Representatives carries an amendment giving the Maori the right to vote for or against no-license. The new clause will not, of course, operate in the King Country, but there are numerous natives elsewhere who will exercise the liquor franchise. It thus amounts to this: Neither Maori nor Pakeha in an artiiicially defined area known as the King Country may vote on the license question, though the European vote is to be counted on the question of national prohibition, but outside this area both Europeans and Maoris are to exercise the vote. Surely, if tho Maori is to be protected—and we chink he does often require protection in this matter -then he should be protected everywhere under exactly tho same conditions.