MERRIVALE CORRESPONDENT AND NO-LICENSE.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 34, 19 December 1905, Page 3

MERRIVALE CORRESPONDENT AND NO-LICENSE.

(To the Editor]' Sir, — I see your Merrivale correspondent, m the notes from this interesting locality m your paper ol the 13th inßt, gives a gratuitous insult to ardent no-license advocates, and Btatea that the no-license cause has received! a set-back m this district. If yonr correspondent gave any consideration to- the qaeattion at all, he Would correct bis mis-statement m yonr next issuer The sort oi set-back that has taken place all! over the colony is one that is most disconcerting to the trade* Three more 9inul_r set-backs would run New Zealand dry of the liquor trade; Forty electorates threw a majority of votes for no-license insteat of continuance. In your correspondent!* own district the no-license vote exceeded the continuance one by tbe necessary three-fifths majority, your correspondent is a bit benighted m his facts. Does it strike you correspondent that the autocratic bearing he speaks about exists on the liquor side rather than* tbe no-license side, 2541 people m Wallace have intimated very plainly that they do not want the licensed bar. 1926- on the other hand have deoided to keep it, and owing to their selfishness compel the hugh majorityto put up with the pest. ' Seems to me this is autooraoy with a vengeanoe* The Czar of Russia tried this game on for a long time and is "trying to keep it'up but findß himself m the. mean time m a pretty tight cornet. He has just played tbe part a trifle too long. The liquor trade m New Zealand is m just about as tight a hole as the.. Czar of -Russia. With this difference the no-license advocates woiSr witb entire, absence ot force of brutaKty, and rely entirely upon the righteousness of the oause working upon public opinion to free N.Z. of the oppressive monoply, and your correspondent is not likely, to be a very much older man' before this much desired time arrives. — Yours, eto.

Wallace Top-Lineb,