The Local Option Vote.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4906, 22 March 1894, Page 2

The Local Option Vote.

The prohibitionist trumpets have been b'own and the walls of the liquor Jericho have not fallen. If the local option vote taTren throughout Now Zealand yesterday haa demonstrated anything clearly, ifc has proved that the people of thiß colony are far from being ripe for the total suppression ; of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. The net result of -the- voting will be to leave things pretty much a3 they were. The ground covered by prohibition ■will be altered, but it will hardly be extended, and though in many populous centres there haa been an emphatic verdict for reduction, the number of licensed premises will, perhaps, not Buffer material diminution, because of failure to elect commiitees prepared to reduce to the limit allowed by law. In eiitimating the strength of the prohibition vote, as shown by the polling yesterday, it is fair to take the Christchurch figures, eince this district is the headquarters of the agitation for the abolition of the existing licensing system. What do the figures teach on this point ? They show that the strength of the prohibition party ij something under one-third of the electors on the roll. From thia it follows that even had the party got a law granting local option to a bare majority of voters on the roll, it would have been utterly unable to carry prohibition. The publican party may a'.eo be presumed to have polled well up to its full strength, and the result shows that though it is numerically one thousand weaker than the opposing party, it holds the balance of power so long as the great body of electors maintain an attitude of apathy. Had the publicans and their supporters simply refrained from voting, the poll would have been void, as the votes for reduction and prohibition, together, were far short of 50 per cent of the number of registered voters. Of the five thousand or so who did not record their votes it may be said that the most of them would have favoured reduction, but refrained from troubling themselves because of their confidence that the prohibition votes would be sufficient to secure reduction. The total number of votes recorded in Christchurch yesterday is probably as large as will ever be exercised here at a licensing poll, and accepting that basis, the prohibition party will have to convert a thousand more voters to their view before they can hope to carry-the poll. The result, so far, proves the wisdom of the three-fifths proviso. But for that safeguard we might have had to-day, the spectacle of less than four thousand of the electors imposing their will upon nearly ten thousand who are not in accord with them. It ib highly-gratify-ing to find that the verdict of the electors is for reduction, and it only now remains for the committee to give effect to the clearly-expressed popular will.