LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS SUGGESTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8755, 18 March 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS SUGGESTIONS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,— According to your columns another action is to be taken to upset the election of a licensing committee. Ifc seems to me that the bone of contention between those who desire licenses to be granted and those who do not is sc-ttled by a very small minority of those affected, It wants no great stretch of the imagination to suppose that from some unforseen reason or circumstance a committee in favour of licenses might not have been nominated for this city, what an uproar this would, have caused, for there is not the least doubt that if the prohibition lot had been returned they would have done nil they stated—they would not grant a license This contingency, the uonnomination of a committee in favour of license, might be avoided or guarded by the Government nominating the bench and extending the Local Option Act so as to include every resident over 21 years of age, and allowing them the power to vote that the bench can renew as many licenses as there are then in existence, or to ducree tho number—to a given number—or to increase or abolish as the majority may desiie. This method should give satisfaction to all liimor sellers and Good Templars, ratepayers and non-ratepayers. I would commend these suggestions to Messrs Fish and Allen, Both gentlemen have, I believe, sat on licensing committees, which should enable them to know what changes in the lav/ are desirable. I trust through your columns, or when they meet their constituents, the gentlemen named will enlighten the citizens as to their views upon what seems likely to become a lively question. There is good and great reasons why at the next session of Parlinment something should be done, for it would be a calamity in our large centres, and to » degree in our small ones too, to gat prohibition carried for three years where the majority of the community do not desire it, for, as things are miw, the large majority of the residents and those who use hotels have no vote in the matter. —I am, &c, Dunedin, March 15. Onlookeb,