REDUCTION AND ACCOMMODATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14381, 26 November 1908, Page 4

REDUCTION AND ACCOMMODATION.

Shi,—Now that, Respite all opposition, the No-license party has secured an overwhelming majority vote for extinction of the liquor traffic, and an offectivo vote for its reduction, specious picas are being advanced for robbing the people of the full fruits of their conquest. Tho contention that a minimum cf licenses should be extinguished on the grounds of the city's accommodation needs is altogether fallacious. Is it imagined that tlyj reform forcoe havo been indulging in a picnic, or fighting for a figment? Let it) be romemborcd that their only buttle is against the open bar, and that they havo never proposed to inlerfcre with tho legitimate accommodation business. Were tho No-iiccnse party magnanimously to forgo tno gain it had secured it would at all points break down its own defences. To do fo would mean condoning what it con- ' demned, and perpetuating what it professes to abhor and can now clfeotivoly limit. It would concede what it had desired—viz., tho necessity for licenses to meet the demand for accommodation, and would thus discredit absolutely all its future attacks upon tho open-bar system. That tho party will he magnanimous I do'not doubt, but it, is fatuous folly to suggest that the peoples pronounced verdict should be ignored. Logically it must cecure a. sympathetic licensing committee which will execute the evident) desiro of tho demflcrauy.—l am, etc., November 20, M. A. R. P.