New Zealand Alliance

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 8561, 16 August 1904, Page 1

New Zealand Alliance

At its meeting last week the New Zealand Alliance Executive carried the- two following; resolutions : "The "Executive of the New Zealand Alliance endorses the statements made by its secretary in his recent correspondence with the New Zealand Times regarding the attitude of the Prohibition Party towards party politics, as he only affirmed the policy that was sent forth in the opening sentence of the fiist annual report, and was adopted by the first General Council of the Association on 29th March, 1887. The Alliance was then declared tc bo 'an organised body 'which would lend an agitation claiming" for the people the direct power to absolutely suppress the traffic ia such localities as the inhabitant;! were cle-si-'ons of doing so.' The Executive asserts that, though it is representative of the Nolicense Associations of the colony, it has no power—nor has any other body of temperance workers—to enter into any compact with political parties, except to assure them that it will support- the candidates of men of character and ability who will pledge themselves to defend in Parliament the people's right to deal as they please with the liquor traffic." "The Executive also expresses its surprise that some editors and politicians speak and write of 'Prohibition' and 'Nolicense' respectively as though they were not one „nd the same thing expressed in different terms. They remind these critics that for every person im the colony who- is licensed (i.e., allowed) to sell liquor, there are five hundred men, women, and children who- are not licensed (i.e., allowed) to do so; that, im other words, the five hundred are prohibited while the one is licensed. In the opinion of the Executive, the term. 'No-license,' that proves so perplexing to these critics, has come into use because Prohibitionists seek to make it clear that their desire is not to interfere unnecessarily with the habits of the people, but to withhold from, all the permission to sell —i.e.. to prohibit them seeing that which is destructive to the community."