NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 118, 24 June 1914, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE.

CONGRESS AT WELLINGTON. Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 24. The twenty-eighth annual meeting of the New Zealand Alliance and the Dominion Congress began in Wellington to-dav. The Mayor welcomed the delegates", who number 180 from all parts of the Dominion. At the Congress breakfast, the Rev. W J. Comrie, chairman of the executive, said the alliance embraced all parties so far as politics were concerned; it embraced all creeds so far as religion was concerned, and it embraced all colours and nationalities. Its goal was the abolition of the liquor traffic in New Zealand, and he hoped their goal was not far distant. They had the majority of the people behind them. The president, Mr Wesley Spragg, said there was no time in the history of their movement when they had more hope of seeing the early success of their efforts. They had never before found their opponents so anxious, so determined, so compactly organised, s.o lavish with their money, and so intent on trying to defeat the Alliance. The liquor party realised that they were approaching their Waterloo, and they realised the nearness of the dissolution of their awful business. He was inclined to think they would see federal prohibition carried in the United States even before it was carried in New Zealand, and he rejoiced at their prospects of success.

Addresses were also delivered by Mrs A. R. Atkinson, Mrs IT. Lee Cowie, the Rev. P..S. Smallfield, Messrs A. Toombs, and C. H. Poole.