The Popular Option Polling Day.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 127, 20 September 1895, Page 2

The Popular Option Polling Day.

(N.Z. Times.) The House has shown itself so evenly divided respecting the day on which the national and local option poll shall be taken that the Premier has reasonably promised to recommit the Licensing Bill to give members one more opportunity to say whether they will accept the Government proposals to take the poll on -general election days. It seems strange that there should be any hesitation to decide in favor of this proposal. It is reasonable to suppose that those who are interested iu " the trade " do not wish the tussle to be confined to themselves on the one hand and pronounced Prohibitionists on the other; and the Prohibitionists, outside the House, declare that they are quite prepared to abide by the decision of a poll taken when practically everybody can be got to record a vote. The compensation for the possibility of the victory being deferred for which they strive they profess to find in the better enforcement and greater permanency of Prohibition which will accrue. This also is a moderation and reasonableness which they do not always give us the opportunity to credit them with. On the other hand, the %

politicians, by which we mean some members of the House who oppose the Government proposals, say that taking the poll on general election days will interfere with the impartial consideration by electors of other political issues iuvolved in the return of Parliamentary candidates. On the contrary, we maintain that if, as appears to be the case, a demand to have the poll on general election days has been made with practical unanimity by the electors who have returned a majority to the present Parliament, then to refuse their demand is to invite them to complicate other political issues at the next general election with the demand to have the law further amended in thil direction ; while to place the Government proposal on the Statute Book will in the main be to satisfy both parties and put the question of further temperance legislation out of politics. The position of members who vote against this proposal and are at the same time Government supporters and professed temperance representatives is simply incomprehensible. They held themselves prepared to support thi3 principle respecting the national option poll in Mr McNab's Bill, and it that the equal simplicity of thevoting process under the Government proposals leaves them without excuse for their apparent change of front. But apart from the " trade " the Prohibitionists and the politicians, the supreme consideration is the people. This.great social question should be settled by the whole of the people, and it will not be so settled on any other than the general election day, when practically everybody in both town and country can be got to the poll. The following figures taken or deduced from returns laid upon the table of the House respecting the last general election and the" subsequent local option polls should assist in setfling this question. In the city of Auckland on the general election day 30,584 votes' were recorded, and as each elector could record three, at least 10,195 persons voted, but at the local option poll only 2252. Other instances of the number of persons who voted at the general election and the local option poll respectively, principally in wide scattered country electorates, and taken from all parts of the Colony, are as follow: —Bay of Islands, 3030 and 829; Marsden, £2900 and 588; Waitemata, 3181 and 1165; Edin, 3521 and 523 ; Parnell, 3266 and 605 ; Manukau, 2803 and 247; Waipa, 2893 and 1026 ; Wa'ikato, 2241 and 487 ; Waiapu, 3905 and 1486 ; Hawke's Bay, 3598 and 1155 ; Patea, 2631 and 1528 ; Otaki, 2465 and 802 ; Inangahua, 2881 and 1167; Avon, 3190 and 2092 ; Riccarton, 2928 and 932; Ellesmere, 2859 and 1238; Rangitata, 2560 and 1761 ; Taieri, 2724 and 1643 ; Tuapeka, 2865 and 1005 ; Matarua, 3081 and 2063; Wakatipu, 2890 and 1044; Invercargill, 3604 and 2150. It is evident on the face of it that these figures are not in all cases wholly, or nearly wholly, accounted for by the moiety vote, the disparity being in some instances too great for that suggestion. In many instances in the widespread country districts the inconvenience of polling is explanation enough in respect of the large body of comparatively indifferent people whose votes nevertheless should, if possible, be secured on such a question. But yet another aspect of trie matter is worthy of consideration. Discretion is diminished respecting the amount of reduction of licenses, by fixing a minimum as well as a maximum ; and a Stipendiary Magistrate is to act where a Licensing Committee fails to be elected. A tolerably certain result will be that in many and especial country districts, where a Stipendiary Magistrate will be as generally acceptable as any committee obtainable, and especially where a reduction of licenses has failed to be carried, the nomination and election of a committee will be voluntarily dispensed with, and thus the option poll on the general election day be an end of the whole business, and any further expense and trouble saved. And it is already provided that in case of district Prohibition being carried no election of a Licensing Committee shall take place, It thus seems to us that the public reasons for taking the option poll on the general electiou day are overwhelming, and that where the interests of the country are best served by an arrangement to which the two opposing parties outside of Parliament on this great question are so largely agreed, Parliament should cordially adopt the proposal which embodies it.