TEMPERANCE MEETING.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7309, 19 June 1895, Page 3

TEMPERANCE MEETING.

(To the Editor op the Herald.) Sir, — I think it is open to question whether " the interests of temperance and morality " are likely to be served by the action of the Prohibition League in connection with this meeting. A public meeting is convened for one purpose, viz., to listen to addresses on temperance by specified persons, and it is turned into an occasion for attacking the Licensing Committee and, if possible, causing division among the members and splitting them into parties. And this is done without any notice given to the persons concerned of what was intended. The matter of the Bridge hotel license, about which this difference arose, was not. explained to the meeting— at least your report does not show it was. The circumstances were these : When the application for renewal was called on, Mr Tombleson, without having said anything to the committee beforehand, or taken any steps whatever to satisfy the committee that there wus a case so strong as to justify the committee proceeding, of its own motion, under what I may truly call the inquisition clause of the Licensing Act, to constitute itself the accuser as well as the judge of the applicant, moved that the committee at once formulate charges. The police report was favorable, no one from outside objected, and the committee was suddenly called upon by one zealous member to take up a false position. There was nothing to prevent the league or Mr Tombleson from getting some one or more persons to object in the usual way, and so to have the case dealt with by a Bench not committed as accusers. In these circumstances I proposed that no action should be taken by. the committee ' • at present," and said, " surely there is another way of having this case dealt with if well-founded, give the facts and evidence to " the Police," or some such words were used by me. What does the league exist for? To earn a cheap virtue by tendering advice privately to the committee, and passing resolutions at meetings, or to fulfil, or assist in fulfilling, the functions of watching the conduct of public houses, and where necessary objecting to licensees ? The community can get along very well without the former, but it and the committee can be greatly aided by more work, and less talk on che part of the league. , There is something humoroup'in the situation too. Just picture the redoubtable Canon clasping in his capacious embrace the four model members, and saying to them " You are noble people ; you have carried out principles of which lam a marked supporter, and my principles on the license question you know are immovable as the mountains. The other people have betrayed those principles." I was certainly not elected to carry out Prohibition. When asked to accept nomination as a candidate I expressly stated that I was willing to serve the public if they chose to elect me, but that I would not be pledged to anything beyond honest effort to administer the law. My sympathies all make for temperance, but I regard justice as infinitely higher, even to a publican and sinner. I shall not object to Prohibition when it comes in a right and natural way, as it will come ; but even unlimited licensing is far to be preferred to a modern inquisition which is prepared to take the law into its own hands, if it were allowed to do so. W. Sievwright.

Sir,— According to your report of the temperance meetiDg on Monday evening, those members of the Licensing Committee who did not support Mr Tombleson iv his action re the Bridge hotel case, seem to have been rather summarily condemned. I can only say that I did noc see then, as I do not see now, how it can promote the cause of temperance or any other^good cause, to act unjustly towards any man, even though that man happen to.be both publican and sinner. Mr Tombleson did not ask for an adjournment, he proposed to act both as accuser and judge; no witnesses were forthcoming to substantiate his assertions. No notice had been served on Mr Page ; nor was he present, so far as 1 am aware, to hear the accusations preferred against him. M. N. Sievwbight.