ALLEGED CORRUPTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19549, 31 January 1927, Page 9

ALLEGED CORRUPTION.

LIQUOR TRADE ASSAILED. NEW SOUTH WALES CONDITIONS, A. and N.Z. SYDNEY. Jan. 29. In the Legislative Assembly Mr. ><• J. McKeil, Minister of Justice, secured leave to introduce a bill to amend the licensing law in the direction of legalising the sale of liquor with meals up to 9 p.m. The bill, which was read a first time, also provides for discontinuance of payments bv licensees to a compensation fund in respect to hotels which were deliccnsed by the Licenses Reduction Board. ' In the coarse of the debate Mr. Albert Lane, Nationalist member for Balmasn, said 'the liquor trade had been able to " manipulate" every Government which had been in power since 1316. He sa'.d he understood £9OOO was offered to the Labour movement if the Government would allow hotels to be kept open until { 3 p. as. j i n the course of his allegations Mr. Lane said the liquor trade was the most lawless industrv in. too Stat&. breaches of the law were committed by it, and by some means or other it was able to " manipulate " Ministries of the State. The liquor trade had put funds into the Labour movmaeat before the kit elections for the purpose of obtaining concessions ia connection with liquor Lat-ioa from the present Parliament. Mr. McKeil and Mr, T. E. Bavin, Leader of the Opposition, hotly repudiated the allegation* of corruption*