LIQUOR QUESTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17859, 3 August 1918, Page 9

LIQUOR QUESTION.

MODERATE LEAGUE MANIFESTO. (From a Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, August 2. The central executive of the New Zealand Moderate" League has issued the following manifesto : The Moderate League was founded in 1914 for the purpose of protecting the rights of the great third party to the liquor question—the moderate public. Prohibition with compensation is a new catch-cry of the prohibitionists, who openly threaten the Government that they "will insist on a referendum being taken. They assert that they have large sums of mouey to expend on their campaign, that they are importing paid agitators from other countries to assist their propaganda, and generally make every effort to force their code of living, through their organisation, on all sections of the people. The prohibitionists propose to put the country to an expenditure of many millions from the public funds for the purpose of effecting their doubtful experiment. They would also destroy a source of approximately .a million pounds annually to the revenue, regardless of the fact that the public must then be taxed in some other way to replace it. Extremists are attempting to force a referendum at a time when the public mind is occupied with larger matters, the vital existence of' the Empire, when nearlv 100,000 men will be absent from Now Zealand on 'active service. The Moderate League, while deploring the necessity for actionat this time, asserts that organised steps must now be taken to protect the liberty of the large but silent majority of moderates. The Moderate League, while holding that the people should not be divided by any referendum on domestic matters at this juncture, advocates, in accordance .with its platform published in 1914. that when next the citizens are called upon to express their views on the liquor question at the ballot bc'ix, provision shall be made for them not only to decide whether the licensed trade shall continue as at present or whether prohibition becomes law, but that the question of national ownership shall be an additional issue, believing that the ballot paper as it now stands does not give the moderate section an opportunity of recording their true opinion. In view of the foregoing, and the belief that prohibitionist activity will not cease with prohibition, but will persist thereafter in attempts to restrict personal liberties in other directions, the Moderate League calls upon tho people to prepare to take part in such necessary action asywill effectually safeguard those rights which the prohibitionists seek to destroy.