MODERATE LEAGUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18225, 19 October 1922, Page 8

MODERATE LEAGUE.

■■ ♦ — ■ THE LIQUOR QUESTION. [BX T£I,SGSAPH PREBB ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON. Wadnwday. A conference of delegates from the provincial branches of the New Zealand Moderate League was held to-day. Mr. W. Perry, deputy president of the central executive, presided. The chairman welcomed the delegates. He briefly recounted the history of the league .from its foundation in 1914. The organisation had worked quietly, but effectively, in the interests of the moderate public. They had been faced with abnormal conditions created by the M'ar, and when they approached the Government in 1915 with a request for a wmpleto overhaul of the liquor laws the Prime Minister had replied that the time was inopportune for dealing effectively with the matter. As reasonable citizens they had to agree with this. Unlike their opponents, the prohibitionists, who had declared the prohibition movement was of more importance than the war, the Moderate League had recognised the relative position of the liquor question. The position now was, however, that with the country returned to normal the campaign could with decency b© resumed. The Prime Minister had recently- stated in Parliament that if prohibition were not carried at the approaching poll the Government would bring down a.comprehensive measure of licensing reform'. - This was the league's opportunity to press for an entirely new liquor law. The conference would be asked to deal with proposals for the amendment of tho law governing the third issue of State control, eo that it would be made a living issue at future polls.