THE MODERATE PARTY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15398, 15 July 1914, Page 6

THE MODERATE PARTY.

If " ISo License,"' who writes to us on the subject, lias suspicions that anyone was present at tbe meeting held in Timaru to organise a -Moderate 'Party t who was either interested in the wholesale sale of liquor or was connected with brewery companies, he would do well to express them plainly. We understand that nobody was present who had direct pecuniary interest in the traffic, and the sug--gestions made during the discussion, and especially during the discussion in. committee, was not reported) would certainly have given no pleasure to the liquor trade. Our correspondent asks if "regulation'"' of. the trade, which briefly describes the object of the Moderate 'Party, has ever been successful anywhere. Apparently*, it has. had no small : .ini hPiniand. Miss Edith Sellars- writes that . "the marked reformation with regard to drunkenness which has been brought about in Finland in these latter days has been » caused partially no doubt by ' Acts of Parliament, although Acts of Parliament alone would surely never have effected it. . The Finnish temperance reformers realised from the first that it was useless to try to keep men from drinking unless the desire to drink could be taken away from them." That is what.-jfew Zealand Prohibitionists will not realise.

The suggestion made at'the moderates'" meeting on Monday night, that special inspectors should be appointed for each licensing district, with plenary powers to inspect hotels, back and front, and sec that they were properly conducted, will/'appeal to most people not extremists on this question as well worthy of consideration. Such regulation should be much' more satisfactory than the best supervision -lha't can be exercised by the police among a hundred "other duties, and the strongest penalties might be made enforceable for breaches of the law. The real difference between moderates and "ZXo License"' is that the former would coerce, if necessary, the few men who sell liquor and the minority .who tend towards excess iu drinking, while "No License "would coerce the whole community upon an untried plan. L: seems to us that an ecclesiastical court might best deal with the Bishop quoted by him who evidently conceives of alcohol as if it were some flaw or oversight in the Creator's scheme.