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Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6875, 13 March 1883, Page 4

Thb women of Sydenham deserve the widest sympathy in the course they have adopted. What they want more particularly is the practical sympathy of the Sydenham Licensing Committee. The Committee may or may not be open to argument from a class of persona who, under the Licensing Act, have no power. Being the oreatures of the Licensing Act, they have a perfect right to look to their constituents, the ratepayers only. Being men of good will, they may take the side of the women, who, if they have no votes, have certainly to bear the chief brant of the drinking customs of the country. That they have no voice in the election of the Committees, they owe directly to chief apostle of temperance in New the Zealand. When the present Licensing Act was before the Legislature, it waa Sir William Fox who introduced the clause making the Licensing Committees elective, and constituting electorates of ratepayers. Perhaps Sir William felt that aa the Legislature waa evidently about to restrict the local .option principle to ratepayers, it was useless to attempt anything more in the election of Licensing Committees. Obviously the proper reform would have been to make the local option possessed by the adult population workable, as well as what it was, real. But the opportunity was lost, and the ratepayer became the arbiter in two polling places. Whether he is entirely master of the situation depends on the Committees. The ratepayer may affirm generally that the number of public-houses may be increased. But the Act gives the Committees the follest option as to the licensing of particular houses, and it confers upon all and sundry the right of petition and protest. Sydenham has ceased to be the " model Borough" in consequence of the present law. But when, at a full meeting like last night's, the women of a distriot—who may be fairly considered to know what grounds they have for their fears—protest against a license on the ground that, in the comforts and deoeaoies of their homes, and even with regard to the necessaries of life, they and their children are bound to suffer, wo cannot believe that their protest will be disregarded.