LOCAL OPTION IN NEW SOUTH WALES

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 13

LOCAL OPTION IN NEW SOUTH WALES

By G. B. Nicholas. It will interest Dunedin readers to compare our New Zealand act with that which will shortly be voted on in New South Wales and note the differences. As with New Zealand there are the three Hsuc. to vote on — viz., Continuance, Reduction, and No-license — a bare majority to carry Reduction and a three-fifths vote being required to carry No-lioense and 30 per cent, of the voters must go to the poll. There is a !?reat difference, however, in the manner of \oting and in the mode of counting the votes. In New South Wales each person can vote only for one issue, but if Nolicen^o is not carried the votes for that issue are added on to the Reduction votes. Thus if 6000 people go to tiro poll and 2500 vote for No-license, only 501 voting for Reduction, the latter issue is declared cai"riod. The New. South Wales Alliance are advising all voters to put a cross in the bottom square and thus vote for No-lieen6e with the certainty of their vote counting for Reduction if the major i6sue is not carried. THE VOTING IS BY A CROSS put in a square opposite the line you wish to vote for. This is also the case in the noting for canti'dates. If No-license is achieved tho vote takes effect in a very gradual way. Sluch hotels as have a bad record may he closed in a year, or tv.o years, as the case may be; but the bulk of the licenses expire at the end of three years, unless the second vote taken l>efore they close shows a three-fifths majority in favour of restoration of licenses. If this be the case they will not close at all. If Reduction is carried the decision as to how many licenses ehall be withheld re-ts with a special court, consisting of a judge and two magistrate?, who are already chairmen of licensing benches. There is a wide margin of variation possible in tho proportion of licences withheld under Reduction. In the Hume electorate, for instance, in which I am now working. Reduction must of necessity abolish four licenses, but may, if the bench chooses, abolish 11, and perhaps 12. It seems strange, coming from New Zealand, to find that REDUCTION IS THE POPULAR ISSUE l^»re in Albury, and, I think, all over the

State. The idea of trying for compl^t< [ No-license seems to manj mest cxrelhe it ; people here revolutionary and quixotic. However, in most place they arc gGmj, to try for Xo-licen^e, as arc vre in tho Ba-nc electorate. It scorns a homeless sort of task : in this place compared to the coriditisns • v.-o find in Olago. This city of Xlbury, j with between 6000 and 7000 pb) ,'jlation, has j 35 drinking-plaoes, several of them being Australian v.-me licences. As, however, the wine sold is \ery strong, being highly fortified with spirit, these depots-ftre considered by temperance workers «s ; at least, as objed- j tionable as the ordinary bars.. As yet In j most places very little public interest i« displayed an No-license matte*- r, compared to that shown in New Zealand at a date 6O close to the poll. The centre of conflict, however, is clearly temporarily shifted to thi6 si<2e, where the vested interests are for the first time in danger. NEWZEALANDEfcS ARE THICK in the fight. Miss Anderson Hughts, of Auckland, hrs been lecturing ie New South Waif" for" some 'months on the No-license side. Mr Ward, the secretary of the Auckland Licensed Victuallers' Association, delivered an address at OuksaViri, some 20" miles from her.c, last Monday evening-- in defence of the trade. I- have challenged . . liiin to substantiate, his stat-enrtents on the public platform, and speak here myself next Tuesday, July 9. It (seems strange, also, to a New Zcalander to find that here, where we are on tho borders of Victoria, there arc licensed houses at Wcdonga, fhrce miles away, which are not subject to the perils now besetting tho Albury houses, as they, being in Victoria, are, for 10 years «t anyrate, free "from " ld'cat option p*6lls. The methods .of the elections here are in manf ways an IMPROVEMENT' ON NEW ZEALAND METHODS. For instance; the police compile the roll, an<] all declarations of these desiring or entitled to enrol must be made before a rrxmber of the police force. So far as I can see in the short time I have been here the local force have done their work admirably. Then, in the compilation of the* roll, each polling booth has its own voters allotted to it. Thus, at Jingellic there are 46 voters allotted to the booth, and they can only vote atr*hat booth, except by* making a declaration before the returning officer. These declarations only hold good for booth.3 within the electorate for which the person is enrolled. At Germanton (which by the. way is not a Gewnan settlement) there are 670 voters, at Tumbarumba 702, at Albury 3234-, and so on. These precautions will all be excellent in helping to I prevent impersonation. 1 SYDNEY POLICE DISTRICT. ; The metropolitan area presents a problem sufficient to strike dismay to the heart of the temperance reformer. There, in close ' juxtaposition, are no fewer than 1174licenses of various sorfe, all contained within the area of the metropolitan police district. Seven hundred and forty-four of these are publicans' and 325 wine licenses. This aggregation of vested interest seems to the onlooker to be well nigh immovable and invincible as far as the popular vote is concerned. It seems almost beyond , reasonable expectation that three-fifths of ; the grcift mass of hurrying and struggling human beings to be seen in Sydney can bo touched by the No-license agitation. Thelargest meetings makes but a tiny ripple upon tho fierce current of city life. Yet their apparent safety may PROVE THEIR UNDOING. ' The number of bars is so huge that everyone agrees that it ought to be reduced, but here from the No-license point of view a weakness in the act becomes manifest. If a single electorate has 160 licensee, as is the easo in one instance, only four mue€ of necessity be forfeited if Reduction is carried. -True, the judge and two magistiatcs MAY in this ca.se close 40, but they arc only ' compkllkd to take away four. It has been proven many times in New Zealand that it is very awkward for a judicial lx>dy to exceed (he limits to which it ie compelled to go by law or by the vote of tho people. FROSTY WEATHER. Here in Albury (which is one of the places il at have competed for selection as ■ th-> Federal capital) readers in Dunedin will be rather surprised to learn that we had two very severe frosts last week. Taps that wcto dripping had long icicles hanging from them in tho morning, and water-pipes were bursting in all directions. As tho temperature here runs up to 105 and even 109 degrees Fahr. in the shade in summer, the variation shown is somewhat remarkable. PROSPECTS OF THE POLL. I cannot think that the prospects of carrying any areas for No-license in New South Wales are very bright, Owing to the popularity of the Reduction issue and! also owing to the fact that the Reduction votes all add to the total to be attacked by the No-license vote, it looks fairly certain that in many eases, if not in all, the votes oa&fc for Reduction will defeat tl -• No-license issue. However, the adding of the No-license votes on to the Reduction total, if the major issue is not carried, makes it fairly certain that Reduotion will be aohieveJ'"in a good many places. The fact that the hotel* to be "reduced" are decided on by a judicial board, instead of by an elected committee as with "us. has one great advantage, in that it will reduce friction to a minimum, but it also has tho disadvantage that the public have no means of compelling the Liccnsmjr Bench to clo=o the full 25 per cent, they are allowed to by the act, even if there is an o\erwhelming majority in the locality who desire this full reduction. The above explanation of the conditions will enable anyone who is following this matter with interest to understand the position and some of the difficulties with which the No-license effort is faced in New South Wales. THE NO-LICENSE PARTY has not yet found itself in this State. Very many, especially women, have not the least idea of the drastio nature of the pewers that have been put into their hands. The New South Wales Alliance have a number of organisers in the field, but each has such a vast area to bring out of chaos into order, and each place is in itself so apathetio and difficult to move that it is plain that there is a long and difficult road to be traversed. In Albury city, from which I write, one-third of the voters are Roman Catholics, and in the whole eleotcrate about one-fourth. As No-license is Icokcd upon as a purely Protestant as;ita-

t:on, and it is notoi-iousfy almost impossible fo • an outsider to influence those o? the Eoman Catvholic persuasion, the result oi th • .local oit:on contest in this place will bo largely governed by the official attitude the Reman Catholic Church choofo-s to take upon the question. The difficulty o£ t!u task of the Alliance is also much increased by the sjreat number of wine-qic-oi-s in the State. Albvry. N.S.W. , July 2.