The Prohibitionist Programme.

White Ribbon, Volume 6, Issue 70, 1 March 1901, Page 5

The Prohibitionist Programme.

The following resolutions, which have been under consideration for some time, have been confirmed by the Christchurch Prohibition League, and may be regarded as the present programme of the Prohibition Party: A. This meeting strongly protests against the proposal: To legalise the sale of liquor, under any system, in the King Country, and urges that Section 33 of the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act Amendment Act, should be made applicable to the dis trict, and that the prohibitory laws should be stringently enforced, (a). It believes it to be the duty of all civilised Governments to protect aboriginal races from self-destruction by drink. (b) It regards the proposal to withdraw this protection from the King Country Maoris as an inconsistent and wholly unjustifiable abandonment, in this particular, of the general policy of protection that the Government of New Zealand has hitherto adopted towards them in this and other matters. (c) It holds that to grant any form of licenses in the district would be a direct and dishonourable breach of the agreement made in April, 1883, be. tween the then Premier and the Maoris, when permission was given for Euro peans to enter the King Country and construct a railway therein. B. It urges Parliament to reject the undermentioned proposals made in the Licensing Acts Amendment Bill, 1900, viz.:—

1. To deprive the electors of the power they now possess to determine for themselves in each electorate whether licenses shall, or shall not continue It holds that the provincial districts are too unwieldy for the purposes of such a poll, and devoid of common interests; and that the considerations which lead to the maintenance of the electorates as licensing districts should lead to their being retained as local option districts.

2. To empower the Colonial Secretary to grant licenses for the convenience of tourists, regardless of the option vote. It holds that the bestowal of such power upon the Colonial Secretary in volves the absolute repeal of the local option poll, and would deprive licensing committeesof their power of control. 3. To take a special vote by which a bare majority of the electors of the

colony can determine on an extension to six years of the term between the submission of iocal option issues to the voters, (tf). It regards this proposal as wholly opposed to the principle of the Referendum, inasmuch as it woul 1 enable whatever party might be for the time being in a m ijority to disfranchise themselves and their opponents. (6). It urges that the result might be to confer on the liquor monopolists of the colony an extension of the unique privilege they already enjoy in holding a three years’tenure of licenses, instead of the annual tenure which rules in all other parts of the English-speaking world, (c). It recognises that such an extension of the term could only result in strengthening the vested interests of the liquor traffic, and in enabling it to still further defy public control. 4. To take from the people the reduction vote without again conferring on licensing committees the discretion ary power to reduce. (The discretionary power conferred on the committee by the Act of 1881 was withdrawn in 1893, only because the question of reduction was then submitted to the electors’ vote,). C. It urges that such drastic changes as are referred to in Clauses Bi and B2 above should not be even submitted to Parliament until the people have considered and pronounced upon thmi at the next general election, (ai It reminds the representatives of the people that 280,000 voters availe 1 themselves in December, 1899, of the powers they possess to vote on the iocal option issues in the electorates, and that no public request has been made by any of them for the substitution of provincial option districts, (b). It urges that the proposals objected to in these resolutions are all distinc ly retrogressive, and unworthy of the Parliament and people of a colony that claims to be in the van of Liberal legislation.