THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28. 1922. AN EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18747, 28 December 1922, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28. 1922. AN EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED.

The circumstances under which, at a special licensing poll, the Maoris of the Horouta district have declared by a very substantial majority in favour of “restoration” doubtless require a little explanation in. view of the fact that members of the Native race have not a voice on the general question of continuance or prohibition. No-license, it must be understood, has not been the order of things in the Hcrouta district, where .there are a number of licensed houses, but for some years past there has been a limited form of prohibition in the district, having application to the Maoris only. The latter have not been allowed to purchase or consume intoxicating liquor on licensed premises. This restriction, respecting which some rather misleading comment has been passed with reference to the introduction of the colour line, was self-imposed, through the vote of Maoris themselves, and dates from the time when six Maori Council Districts of the North' Island took advantage of section 46 of the Licensing Amendment Act of 1910 and asked the Government -to give them a poll in their special districts. In all the districts save Horouta the vote favoured continuance of the supply of liquor under the existing licensing laws to the Natives. In Horouta the vote went the other way, and its effect was to introduce prohibition so far as the Maoris were concerned. The Horouta Maoris have had eleven years experience of that system, and apparently they have been for some time convinced that its results have been unsatisfactory and by no means such as were hoped for in the beginning. The experiment of prohibition was surely never carried on under more unfavourable circumstances than in a district containing licensed premises authorised by statute to sell liquor to two-fifths of the population only. The differentiation involved in the other three-fifths of the population being denied the right exercised by the pakehas worked out apparently in a manner which the Maoris as a whole by no means relished. According to Mr Ngata, member for the Eastern Maori District, upon whose advice they tried this experiment of limited prohibition, the Natives concerned had a distinct promise that they would have a periodic poll on the question. It was only last session, however, that the legislation necessary to permit of their reviewing, the position, the Horouta District Licensing Poll Bill, was introduced and passed. The effect of the poll that has now been taken will he to do away with the conditions attendant on the operation in the Horouta district of the scheme of limited prohibition. No alteration will bo involved of the existing law that liquor may not be taken into Native villages, that it may not be supplied to Natives for consumption off the licensed premises, or that it may not be supplied to Maori women. These restrictions will hold good. The only differ-

cnco brought about is that licensees may sell liquor to the Maoris of the Horouta district for consumption on the premises. Mr Ngata, whose advocacy in support of the legislation providing for the recent poll was most effective, admitted in the House that he had been twitted with back-sliding from his no-license views, but he based his argument on the right of tho Maoris in the Horouta district to vote on the question. Mr Coates told the House that, according to the representations of a Maori deputation which interviewed him as Minister of Native Affairs, the whole arrangement had gone contrary' to what was expected, and the result was that, in spite of all the police could do, liquor in large quantities was carried to the hapus and kaingas, while everything led to subterfuge and a state of affairs contrary not only to the interests of the Natives but to the public interest as well. In view of all the circumstances, as illuminated in debates in both Houses of Parliament, the direction of the vote of the Maoris of the Horouta district is scarcely surprising.