PREDATORY PROHIBITIONISTS.

Free Lance, Volume XIII, Issue 671, 10 May 1913, Page 8

PREDATORY PROHIBITIONISTS.

Auckland Aqua-purlsts arid the Famous Massey Phlegm. UCBZEjAND prohibitionists have not, - got very much out of Premier Massey this. silly season. They came to him in their respectable little gangs and deputations, and they poured forth their .woeful plaint; but Mr. Massey "had heard it all before, and he nei-. ther .blushed nor went. He pointed out that there could be no local option poll until the next election ; so that .no amendment of the licensing laws was urgent. In any case, he would not commit himself to a statement of the Government's intentions., * * * * Let it be noted that some of the latest demands of the Auckland water-worship-pers might make a cat blush; They are no longer to be contented even by the concession of the absolute majority— which is yet far off. They want to dictate to John Barleycorn on every point —how many bars he shall have in his house, how. mgiiy this, how many that. * ■ '*• ; * *: ■ They demand that he shall not be permitted to sell his genial wares on the weekly half-'holiday, lest Mr. Simper,, the. draper's assistant, be sore tempted to run amok on a lemonade and, claret. Which is all very well, by way of a jest; but the public must soon wake up to the sheer rapacity and intolerance of the water-logged section; Sense is sense,, and. justice is justice : but queer prizes often go to unscrupulous persistence . in the teeth of both. '