LOCAL OPTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10220, 14 December 1893, Page 6

LOCAL OPTION.

j TO THE KDITOB. fJ3in,«-»Mr Sheppard misapprehends me. I did not condemn local government, nor j advocate nominoeism. What I object to is the - principle of prohibition. If the . person who was fined ten pounds for in- ! suiting the, station-master at Ashburton | had been tried by ballot at Temuka the ‘ same day he would not have got off so f easily, if ha had got off at .all. If Sir ) Eobert Stout and hia mates think they can | run the Government show and shut the 1 grog shops I have no objection to ■ them | having a try, if they are the majority of j the people’s representatives, as Messrs Saunders and Smith' put it. Will either of these gentlemen resign and contest the seat with a Government supporter on the single question they make so much of, and see Whether they are' in accord with a majority of their constituents on that question ? lam one of tho people, and am not afraid to trust the people with all legitimate powers. But I deny that any portion of tho paoplo Lava a right to tyrannical power, else it would ba only necessary to abolish law and Government. I The object of Eadieulism, i.c., true j Liberalism, is to abolish tyranny and des- !* potism, not to transfer evils from one source to another. Even if there was reason to believe that the object prohibi- } tionists profess to have in view would be | accomplished, the end would not justify j the means. But there is no reason to »believe anything of the sort. ; The ! root of the evil must he reached I before it can be eradicated. It is | there that true Liberalism is directing (its blows silently and surely. There are so many erroneous opinions of what conI atitutes Liberalism. We want a definition ! of the term, and it can be summed up in one word. Justice. Political justice ia all Iwe require. Iu political justice we have a \ key to the solution of all our social evils | and social wrongs. Now it seems to me I that we will sooner arrive at that solution 1 by an assembly of representatives deliberating and reasoning together than we will by ballot, if we are to decide what is to be and what ia not to be by ballot, what do wo want to pay -£2-tO a year to so many representatives for ? Why do we want a Legislature at all ? It is not the I Legislature that gives the people power. It is the people that creates and empowers the Legislature. If a majority of the people prefer mob law by ballot to our present system we will rightly have to submit; but no Legislature has the right to impose any ouch change upon us before the voice of the people has been taken on s that question,—l am, &c„ W. L. DUNCAN.