Tuapeka Times AND 60LDFIELD3 REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1894. " MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 4079, 28 February 1894, Page 2

Tuapeka Times AND 60LDFIELD3 REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1894. " MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Too much stress cannot be laid on the necessity of the fullest advantage being taken of the privileges conferred on the electors by the new Licensing Act. The Act may not be quite as perfect in some respects as many desire ; it is not entirely free from blemishes, and, if so, there is no more effective way for making clear its weaknesses and deficiencies than by subjecting it to a practical and exhaustive test. The one feature most objected to is that which makes the effectiveness of a vote dependent on a contingency which may be defeated either by the apathy of a considerable body of electors, and unfortunately the apathetic and the lukewarm are in all large bodies an element to reckon with, or by calculated and deliberate abstentions on the part of an interested class. The knowledge that such an eventuality is possible should show the more thoughtful and intelligent of the electors the necessity for action. They should see that the practical working of the Act, as well as the accomplishment of any practical results, will depend on the stimulus which a comparatively small number in the different sections of the licensing district are capable of imparting to the election. What is everybody's business.it is said,is nobody's business; and soi t is in all public questions wlnVh. concern large masses of the pecwifc, that the task of instructing the public mind, of furnishing an incentive to action and of lead-.

ing the way, devolve on a few, without whose leavening influence general or concerted action is seldom possible. Iv other districts there are organised bodies of a more or less representative character who undertake to see that the new law should get a fair trial and shall be taken tbe fullest advantage of for determining the public mind on one of the most perplexing and momentous questions of the day. In this licensing district there are no such bodies, though a public meeting is to be hold in tho Borough Council Chambers to-morrow evening with the object of doing something towards ensuring a general expression of popular opinion on the questions which are to be submitted to the electors next month. There is nothing whatever of the partisan or the extremist in this ; it is the kind of meeting and occasion which fittingly invite the attendance of people of varying shades of opinion to1 wards the end that extreme courses may be avoided and reforms of a moderate order accomplished. We are far from being in accord with the sweeping theories of prohibition ; and it is to avoid driving the public to this last desperate alternative that we urge the desirability of reform. All are agreed that certain reforms in the liquor traffic in this as well as in other districts are imperative. People of the most opposite views admit this; it is impossible to do otherwise, and they must see that there is no more certain means of arriving at the extreme goal of prohibition than by obstructing or defeating the efforts of those who are now endeavouring to bring about moderate reforms, and so remove those causes which must ultimately, it untouched and uncorrected, lead to the acceptance of those extreme opinions now most dreaded by those engaged in the trade. Time and events have proved that those in whose hands lay the administration of the licensing law in previous years have been the greatest enemies of the liquor traffic. Their leniency and their easygoing methods of administering the law are solely responsible for all the dangers that now threaten the liqnor trade. A higher conception of duty on the part of those entrusted with the administration of the law which is now about to expire would assuredly have prevented all this. But it is not too late yet to learn and to profit by the lesson which the experience of the past conveys. The lesson, legibly written, is that moderate concessions to public opinion are necessary as well as inevitable, unless it is intended to forge fresh weapons for those whom nothing less than the entire destruction of the trade will satisfy. The regulation and restriction of the trade on reasonable lines cover the ground over which the large majority of the people are desirous of going and to accelerate rather than to obstruct or impede their progress should be the policy of all who are wise in their desire for the conservation of the liquor traffic on more approved and more permanent lines than it at present runs on.

The Waipori Miners' Association have received a reply from the Mines Department, in answer to their urgent demand for the immediate proclamation of the Waipori River as a slndge channel. The reply received runs :—: — •' Afraid excessive amount of claims for compensation will prevent the Government doing what yon require." The proclamation of the Waipori River as a receptacle for tailings is a matter of very serious import to the residents of Waipori, whose interests are all more or less closely identified with the mining industry, as well as to those outside of the district who have invested in miuing dredging on the Waipori River. The claims for compensation may be heavy ; but it is douDtful if they will weigh against the loss, direct and indirect, which would follow the paralysis of the mining industry in Waipori, for that is what would happen were the Government to leave the miners to their fate.