LOCAL OPTION POLL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12999, 15 December 1902, Page 8

LOCAL OPTION POLL.

THE POSITION IN THE SOUTH. [FROM Oum CORRESPONDENT.] DUNEDIN, Dec. 13. Another chapter to the licensing polls controversy is furnished by Mr A. S. Adams. This gentleman ■who, like Messrs Maicgregor and Thornton belongs to the legal profession, is a' recognised leader of tho temperance party. He says that “as Dunedin, Cavershain, etc., are non- new districts the electors of those districts, have never had any opportunity of coming to a. poll after the alteration of boundaries this year. Tho poll taken on Nov. 25 was, therefore, the first poll taken in those districts under the Act. If this poll stands, then licenses may be granted where only reduction is carried. If it does not stand but is declared void, and as Mr Thornton puts it is thus a nullity ab initio, the electors of the district have not determined anything, and section 3 of the Act of 1895, therefore prohibits tho granting of any licenses. The trade consequently is on the horns of a dilemma. It may either accept the present situation and submit to a reduction with the best, grace it can muster or it may press its petitions with tho risk of succeeding and preventing any licenses being granted at all. The position is, different in different districts. In Dunedin and, Caver,sham reduction only was carried, in Chalmers, Bruce and Mataura no-license was carried. Obviously the effect of the above will be different in cases of reduction and no-license. It will be suggested that the liquor party have nothing to lose in pressing their petitions in Chalmers, Bruce and Mataura, as the licenses are bound to go in any event, but I do not think it will work out so ait all. For instance, if in Chalmers the party were to succeed on their petition and have the poll upset, then if my interpretation of the Act is correct no licenses can be granted in that district, and this singular result will follow:—The licenses will be extinguished. At the next licensing poll the questions to be submitted to tho voters will be the same as at present, viz. : (1) Continuance, (2) reduction, (3) no license. Suppose the poll to be taken and if “ continuance ” is carried that means that “ the number of licenses in the 'district shall continue as at present,” and as there will be no licenses in the district none can be. granted, and no vote for restoration can be taken, therefore, licenses are for ever excluded from the districts. It looks as though the petitioners will be ‘hoist with their own petard.’ ” Legal, gentlemen, like doctors, differ. Mr J. H. Thornton, who has been retained for the petitioners in the Chalmers local option poll matter, writes to the “ Sttir ” : —“ I wa-s much amused at the letter of Mr J. MacGregor, which appeared in your last night’s issue. If the licensing poll in Dun--ad-in is declared void, then that poll is in law a ‘ nullity,’ which, being interpreted, means that no poll has taken place at all, and therefore what was intended to be a poll has no legal effect whatsoever. You then ask yourself what, was the previous determination of the electors? It was continuance, and therefore continuance must still reign, assuming that the present poll for reduction is declared void.” [Per Press Association.] DUNEDIN, Dec. 13. The Broad Bay voting-papers being still missing, the Magistrate, Mr Carew, rules that a recount of the Chalmers local option poll is impossible.