THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 14167, 15 September 1906, Page 11

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

, ' . 10 THE EDITOB. Sir, —W© have heard much lately of the will of the people and the rights of the people, hut if the people themselves neglect to exercise their privilege they will, most assuredly, sooner or later discover that their rights and wills have no longer any existence. If the thousands of electors had gone to the poll at the late Licensing Committee election it is very probable the men now on the com mitt o would have been conspicuous by their absence therefrom. It is much to be regretted that the gentlemen who waited on the members of that committee for the purpose of applying for a conditional license for the Exhibition bad not refrained from making the application. They would have saved themselves from th© humiliation of receiving a refusal of their request; for it was a foregone conclusion by everyone that such refusal was < inevitable. One needs only to turn to the report of a meeting held recently in the Choral Hall to discover that the people, or rather a minority of the people, had placed on th© Licensing Bench men who were utterly unfitted for their position. Bias and bigotry wore their only recommendation, while the references to certain journals and their editors gave conclusive evidence that these members of the Licensing Committee were the last men. on the

earth to talk about the will of the people. It is to be hoped that the electors of this city will take care in future to exercise their rights and not let their own apathy produce such, deplorable results.—l am, etc., A.C.W.