PROHIBITION PROGRAMME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11581, 20 February 1901, Page 5

PROHIBITION PROGRAMME.

LIQUOR IN THE KING COUNTRY.

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS OF LICENSING ACT. [BY TELEGRAPH, PRESS ASSOCIATION.] CilßlsTcnußCH, Tuesday. v The following resolutions, which have been under consideration for somo time, have been confirmed by the ClirtsjahurcU Prohibition League, and may be regarded as the present programme of the. Prohibitionist party: —

y This meeting strongly protests against tho proposal to legalise the sale of liquor under any system in the King Country, and urges that section 33 of the Alcoholic Liquor Sale .Centre* Act Amendment Act, 1895, be made applicable to the district, and that the prohibitory laws bo stringently enforced. It believes it to be the duty of all civilised Governments to protect aboriginal races from self-destruction by drink. It regards the proposal to withdraw protection from the King Country Maoris as an inconsistent and wholly unjustifiable abandonment in this particular of the general policy of protection the Government of New Zealand has hitherto adopted towards them in this and other matters. It holds that to grant any form of license in the district, would be a direct and dishonourable breach of the agreement made in April, 1885, between the Premier and Maoris, when permission was given to Europeans to enter the King Country and construct a railway therein." "That this meeting urges Parliament to reject the undermentioned proposals made in the Licensing Acts Amendment Bill, 1900, viz.:—(l) To deprive- the electors of the power they now possess to determine for themselves in each electorate whether licenses shall or shall not continue; (2) to empower the Colonial Secretary to grant licenses for the convenience of tourists, regardless of the, option vote; (3) to take a special vote by which a hare majority of electors of the colony can determine on the extension to six years of the term between the submission of local option issues to tho voters. It regards tho proposal as wholly opposed to the principle ot the referendum, inasmuch as it would enable whatever party might be for the time being in a majority to disfranchise themselves and their opponents. It urges that the result might bo to confer on the liquor monopolists of tho colony an extension of tho unique privilege they already enjoy in holding three years' tenure of licenses instead of annual tenure, which rules in all other nails of tho English-speaking world; and to take from the people the reduction vote without again conferring on licensing committees discretionary power to reduce. It urges that such drastic changes as referred to should not b-*» even submitted to Parliament until the people have considered and pronounced upon them at the next general election. It reminds representatives of tho people that 280,000 voters availed themselves in December, 1899, of the powers they possess to vote on the local option issues in the electorates, and that no public request lias been made by any of them for substitution of provincial option districts. It urces that the proposals objected to in these resolutions are all distinctly retrogressive and unworthy of the Parliament and people of the colony and I heir claims to be in the van of liberal legislation."