THE COUNCIL ON TRIAL

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9783, 5 October 1917, Page 4

THE COUNCIL ON TRIAL

In considering (and manipulating) the Liquor Bill, the Committee of tho Legislative Council did its duly appointed duty, Tho measure had been submitted by the Council, and the Committee was hound to deal with it seriously, if not sympathetically. When tho bill gets back from the Committee, it will be for the Council to do its duty. The highest duty the Council owes is to tho Constitution. Comparatively, it owes to the prohibition clause no duty at all. If in any question of prohibition or licensing there is a majority for whatever may bo before the Council, the duty of that majority, as well as of the other side, is first to the Constitution. Now, the Constitution will he in grave danger if this bill is allowed to pass. If any member of the Council has any doubt upon tho point, he has only to read the report of what took place at tho door of “another place” on Wednesday night bo tween the Prime Minister and a crowd from a public meeting. The crowd reminded the Minister how he and the House of Representatives had been dominated by dictation in the matter of the Liquor Bill. With their jibe that crowd hit the vory**core of the matter. Having seen Parliament successfully bullied, they had come to bully in their turn. .They had discovered that the secret of Democratic government is clamour. . They were quite right, for the Liquor Bill owes it to clamour that it is now before the Council. All the reasoning in the case is against the hill. But that is not the point. The point is that clamour has frightened the representative House and the Government, into accepting the signatures of 170,000 irresponsible petitioners as more valid than the votes of over 600,000 electors. The representatives, baling accepted a spurious mandate as the voice of the people, which could have been ascertained" definitely without either

difficulty or delay, the Constitution has been flouted and is in danger of perpetual instability. The Council can and ought to save the Constitution from that peril by refusing the second reading of the bill.