LABOUR PARTY PLATFORM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 139, 14 May 1936, Page 6

LABOUR PARTY PLATFORM.

(To tbe Editor.) Sir,—ln reply to .“Enquirer,” the Labour Party has on no occasion since its inception adopted national prohibition as one of its planks. Neither has it adopted national continuance as one of its planks. In the Labour Party there exists every shade of opinion as regards the liquor question. There are those who believe that a great deal of grinding poverty exists as a result of the abuse of liquor. There are others who believe that a great deal of the abuse of liquor is the result of grinding poverty. There are those who believe that liquor is an evil in itself; there are others who believe that State Control would solve the liquor question. But there is no diversity of opinion in the Labour Party concerning the right of the people to settle the question by means of a referendum. Consequently, the Labour Party’s attitude has always been in support of a referendum, and, where more than two issues are involved, that preferential voting should obtain by a single transferable vote. There have l>een in the past many attempts to divide the Labour Party on the liquor question, but experience has usually shown that in the main the liquor fight has been carried on between opposing groups of capitalists who, though at daggers drawn on the liquor question, could always agree to fight shoulder to shoulder against Labour in the political and industrial fields. So the answer to “Enquirer’s” question is in the negative.—l am, etc., V. A. CHRISTENSEN, 46 lleretaunga Street, Palmerston North.