LICENSING CAMPAIGN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10084, 24 September 1918, Page 8

LICENSING CAMPAIGN

To the Editor '‘N.Jfi. Times/’

Sir, —,1 see uiat one ot ygur reporters has obtained an' interview with mr Jas. jtct-'jmijs, member tor .Lyttelton, on the licensing question. He, .has -supported tne non. j. x. Pant. He seeks ior - a democratic vote on the licensing' ques--iaii. Ho puts forward a proposition, however 1 which he calls "a trick. of the i-rade'' to secure LoiiuuuuiiCe, ana Inm ue says is not. democratic. "Here is ui McCombs’s proposition ; —"lf 260,000' electors voted ior Pioliioinoa, tor atute Ownership, audeouiy for'Continuance, tyoniinuauce wourd be carried. - ' .that is not the proposition of the tradi as I understand it. That is Air .McCombs's own invention for the purpose of deceiving the geuemr puimc, ana Labour Party 'in particular. Mr McCombs. knows that State Ownership and Control is the policy of tno Habou. Party. He knows that State Ownership and Control means continuation of the trade by which the memoero of the working classes are to bo concerned. Under State Ownership and Control the working classes and those wno nuy ana ».«* -alcoholic beverages would still enjoy the liberties they now possess, am. Uiuso vote for continuance are alike' favourite.s. to ' the preservation of those liberties; therefore, in the proposition he puts loiward -there womd be a clear majority oi the electors favourable to oontinuanco under State ownership or under tha licensing system as it now exists. There, lore, the democratic resmt would bo taut 260,000 noople would vote for Proiuuitum and 20j,fKx> for tit ate Ownership and Continuance, giving a clear majority on Air McCombs's own proposition of 5000 electors tor continuance.- h it wuie otherwise, as Mr McCombs;suggests; then ho would have a minority dominating, a majority, which is not a democratic j reposition. Any blind man can see through Mr McCombs’s trick. Mr McCombs is a politician and a proluoiuoiust. ■ Ho i? both of these first and Labour man many lengths behind, second. The average Labour man and the average reader of the "New Zealand Times" has sufficient intelligence to see through the trickery which Mr McCombs, the prohibitionist, is anx ; ous to import-into., the licensing campaign. I doubt very muoh-if-Mr-Mc-Combs is a, member of the New'Zealand Labour Party, at all events when State Control was adopted as a plank of the Labour Party's platform Mr McCombs, the , iibmonist. resigned from ms position in that pprty, proving that Mr McCombs is a prohibitionist first, and a Labour man a long way after.—l am, eto., BEMOCKAT.