NEW LICENSING BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19417, 27 August 1926, Page 10

NEW LICENSING BILL.

STRONG ATTACK BY ALLIANCE. "SINISTER AND UNJUST." PLEDGES AT THE ELECTION. APPEAL MADE TO MEMBERS. [BY TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL HEPOBTEE.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. " Sinister, unjust, reactionary and undemocratic " are some of the epithets applied to the Licensing Amendment Bill by -the Standing Committee of the New Zealand Alliance in a resolution of abnormal length which reads in part as follows: "That the Standing Committee of the New Zealand Alliance expresses its regret and indignation that, for the first time in more than 20 years, a Prime Minister of New Zealand should have introduced a Licensing Bill conceived almost entirely in the interests of the liquor traffic, and appeals to the friends of Reform throughout the country to spare no legitimate effort to prevent the passage of this unjust, undemocratic and reactionary measure in anything like its present form. " The Prime Minister's bill withholds from the people the fair deal of which the traffic is afraid, and further loads ' the scales in its favour. " The persistent request of the Prohibition Party that the third proposal, which confused the issue and by an unjust method of counting credits to continuance votes which have been cast against it, should be eliminated from the ballot paper is ignored by the bill. The direct grant of the trade's demand for the extension of the interval between the polls would, of courso, be impossible in a House where a majoritv of tho members are in favour of maintaining the existing term, but an ingenious device is provided with he intent to secure this advantage for tho trade without a violation of the pledges given by members to their constituents. " The Prime Minister cannot say that he has authority from anybody but tho trade for the submission of a proposal of which neither he nor anybody else said a single word at the general election. It is equally absurd to call a procedure just under which the trade stands to gain everything and to lose nothing. " The Alliance looks with confidence to ts friends in the House to honour fhe letter and the spirit of their declarations in favour of the deletion of the third issue from the ballot paper, the maintenance of the triennial poll and the resistance to any extension of facilities to a destructive traffic, and to reject all the reactionary proposals which without the faintest show of having consulted the people the Prime Minister has included in his sinister bill.'" PROTEST FROM PRESBYTERIAN'S NO REFORM IN MEASURE. [BY telegraph.—pbess association. ] DUNEDIN. Thursday. The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand sent the following telegram to the Prime Minister to-day :—- "The Licensing Bill contains no reform, and the Church protests against the extension of time between licensing polls. Any increase of licences demands either > two-issue ballot paper or a decision for an issue having the highest number of votes."