PROHIBITION OR HIGH LICENSE

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 683, 9 April 1903, Page 20

PROHIBITION OR HIGH LICENSE

Vermont, which has clung to prohibition of the liquor traffic for fifty years—no other State, not even Maine, having had the system in force for so long a continuous period —is soon to decide whether the policy shall be continued, or a measure for local option and high license shall be adopted in its place. The State legislature, week before last, pressed such a substitute measure, and the people of the State are to vote on it on the first Tuesday of January next, although apparently their negative vote can only postpone the measure for a few months. For one curious provision of the referendum act is as follows :—“ This Act shall take effect on the first Tuesday of March, 1903, provided, that if a majority of the ballots to be oast as hereinafter provided shall be ‘ No,’ then this Act shall take effect the first Monday in December,’ 1’8,94.” But n»ot a pledge in the Republican platform to submit a new measure of this kind to a vote of the people, the legislature, it is reported, would have passed a Bill known as the Battell Bill, providing for a dispensary system. This Bill gained great strength among some members of the legislature, says a correspondent of the Springfield “ Republican,” and was supported by the prohibitionists, who, though they did not approve of it, considered it a good weapon with which to defeat the License Bill, and expected that it would be easier to defeat before the people. But many of the legislators who do not believe in local option or license, felt themr

selves bound by the party’s pledge and voted for the License Bill, while admitting that they will vote against it on th© referendum. Although the Bill is so worded that which ever way the vote may go, the license policy must, it seems, go into effect, the Springfield “ Republican ” remarks that a decided “ No ” vote next January " would be considered a command upon the next legislature (to b© elected next year) to repeal the Bill. “ State prohibition, fifty years old,” declares the Rutland (Vt.) “ Herald,” “ia the most perfect instance of bigotry that we ever knew of.” The Omaha “ Bee,” for many years a strenuous advocate of th© high-license system that prevails l in Nebraska, says that the removal of Vermont from the prohibition column “ takes away from the advocates of constitutional and statutory prohibition one of the principal examples to which they hav® been accustomed to point as an, objectlesson for other communities.” It adds : “ The repeal of the prohibition law in Vermont, therefore, simply registers anew the verdict that has been repeatedly rendered in every State in the Union, with but two exceptions, in which it has been tried or proposed. If anyone z were convinced that Absolute prohibition is th® only solution of the liquor problem, thi® would indeed be discouraging to him ; but proof is at hand that far better results are achieved for the suppression of intemperance with regulation through local option laws, which at the same time throw salutary restrictions about the sale of liquor and yet avoid the creation of an outlaw .business.’- The New York Evening Post observes that the “ complete conversion to the local option idea of sa State which has long been given over to the hypocrisies of statutory prohibition should do much to strengthen the case of genuine excise reform.” The Boston “ Transcript ” declares that “ the lesson has been at least learned and the Prohibition party of that State and of the country is dead.” The policy followed in the new bill is very similar to that in operation in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The cities and towns will vote annually on the question of granting licenses. Fees range from £lOO to £240. Peculiar features 1 are provisions for establishing saloons selling only malt liquor® and light wines and forbidding the treating custom. In voting whether license is to be granted or not, the voter may specify whether the license is to permit the sale of malt liquors only. The commissioners!, three in number, and not more than two from any political party, are to be appointed by the select men of the towns. —“ Literary Digest,” December 0, 1902.