THE MODERATE LEAGUE.

White Ribbon, Volume 21, Issue 242, 18 August 1915, Page 6

THE MODERATE LEAGUE.

The Moderate League have waited upon the Premier and asked for licensing reforms. What ire these reforms they so urgently require? They want a Royal Commission to enquire into (i) the efficiency of the N.Z. Licensing Act, (2) the liquor laws of other countries, (3) the conduct of the licensed houses and the Trade generally in X**w Zealand, -(4) the system of State control, municipal control, and public liquor trusts. They also asked for the abolition of Licensing Committees, that the administration of licensing laws should not be left to the Police Department; that the No-License issue be eliminated •* and that licensing election* be held once in six years. •When one reads these proposals, we see that the Trade wants to go back to the “good old days ’ before thc»e were any Prohibitionists to worry and annoy them. It is a significant fact that though the League asked for the Royal Commission to enquire into the licensing laws of other lands, they were very careful to ask that “No evidence presented with a view to advocate Prohibition should be idlowed.” Even the Moderate League knows that in Russia, in U.S.A., and wherever tried, Prohibition has been too much of a success to allow the evidence to be given in New Zealani before a Royal Commission.