THE LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 57, 23 March 1900, Page 2

THE LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTION.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir, —The matter of the Licensing Committee election bristles with questions. Have deposits been lodged with nominations in previous years I If bo, did the fact that only one colour was nominated annul this legal requirement! Or is it a new enactment I Were the nominators told of the informality so that they might amend it, or is this out of the province of Returning Officers' duty or courtesy, or were the nominations in too late to allow this remedy i Someone has blundered, and although it may be the best issue that has happened it is not satisfactory to the authority to be constituted by a fluke. How is it, too, that whenever any possible gain may come to the friends of Prohibition legal quibbles and technicalities like so many pitfalls almost invariably hinder the will of the people ? Do not those who deplore the possible cost of an election to the public deplore more the possible cost to the traffic if the people are allowed impartially to express their mind ? Some of us watching public matters are inclined to think so, and that Lord Kosebery is right in stating " If we do not control the drink traffic the drink traffic will very soon control us." How the oracle is worked your correspondent does not know, but that it is worked and almost invariably in favour of vested interest and an entrenched traffic, rather than in favour of the long-suffering public, and yet more long-suffering victims of the drink crave, seems only too clear. —I am, etc., Pbo Bono Publico, i