ELECTION OF LICENSING COMMITTEE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3961, 8 February 1882, Page 2

ELECTION OF LICENSING COMMITTEE.

TO THE EDITOR. • Silt,—As Secretary of the Taranaki Temperance Alliance I am directed to take advantage of your kind offer to publish their views in relation to the forthcoming elections. i Such a step seems necessary, as an ■ opinion has been'expressed that the Temparancc party hero desire to fill the Committee with men who will be expected to administer the'law from an extreme teetotal point of view. This is a mistake. They desire only to elect men who will administer the Act in accordance with its general spirit and the principles which it embodies, and who will hold tho balance fairly between the public on the one hand, and those engaged in the liquor traffic on the other. The most striking principle of the, Act is that uf Local Option or Local Self(iovorniiieiit. This feature distinguishes (lie provisions as to the eiw-'tiriition of the Licensing Committee and tho grunting of now liconses, i Hi (id W.

The principle of Local Option is not new; it was in the Acts of 1873 and 1874, but the machinery for .giving it effect was defective. The new Act provide* Mich machinery by giving the ratepayers power to elect Licensing Committees instead (if their being nominated by the Government. The rest of the Act consists of little else than a consolidation of lifty-unc Acts and Ordinances of the General and Provincial Legislatures — inimy of them so cohfliclmg th<i,t on some .important details nobody knew what the law was. It is an error to describe the new Act as a teetotaller's Act. There were scarcely half-a"d(izen' teetotallers in the Ililuse of { Representative!!, and the -'Elective Committee chiiisV Was canned by nearly two to one, including nearly all the sd called Liberal party. ItTs equally an error to talk' of the teetotallers forcing their views , on the community at the coming elections. Whatever is done must be by the voluntary- act of the, majority oi! the ratepayers. — I am. &c, Robert C. IJughes. 1 Secretary.