LIQUOR QUESTION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume L, Issue 175, 3 November 1917, Page 5

LIQUOR QUESTION

The Prime' Minister and the Minister for Finance mad© important states ments in. the House of -Representatives on Thursday with regard to the liquor , question says the Post: "When the Siv o'Clock dosing Bill was before the House, said Mr Massey; there , had been. , a good deal of unrest and" excitement, and the opinion had'been expressed by himself and tfie Minister for Finance that something : required : to be done ;to put matters on a satisfactory i footing. ' He thought that they 1 expressed the opinion that it" "might be well' to give the electors an opportunity to decide the question ,according to the recommendations of £he Efficiency Board**! —rthat was to say, whether would' have continuance on the -one nafid, or I prohibition, with coinperisation y> be i ' paid , on the other. Cabinet had not J been able to consider the matterj this session, but during the recess, Showever, it would be the business of Cabinet to consider proposals with the object of putting them before the House next session, with a view to putting, the whole question in a better jJ&r-v tion than at present.- He wantfedt tomake it clear that the bare majority | was not intended to apply to' the usual continuance, no-licence, or national prohibition poll, but to the proposal of the Efficiency Board for a referendum" on continuance or prohibition with compensation. Sir Joseph Ward said that he did not wish to enter upon the controversial aspects of the matter at such a time. He only Wanted to say that he, for one, recognised that they had not by any means seen the end of this great and difficult problem in this country; and he had made his own position clear by voting against anything and everything that meant a reduction in the revenue'of the country at this moment. He did so from the point of view that they did not know where they might be six months from now, and there was no man living who could decide what the country might have to do financially, and otherwise until the end of the war. Without committing himself to any course at the present • time, he was quite satisfied that they all required to consider the position, and that, whatever their views might be for or against national prohibition or continuance ,they must "recognise that there was a great problem still to be solved.