CORRESPONDENCE.

White Ribbon, Volume 37, Issue 437, 18 December 1931, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor.) Madam. —Whether the Alliance was wise or not in supporting the postponement of the Licensing Poll is a matter on which no one can speak dogmatically. In my h\imble opinion, I think the Alliance acted wisely. I wish here to refer to the concluding paragraph in your leading article of September 18, l>earing on th° No-License districts. I think you are too generous to the enemy. You are "democratic enough to say that if three-fifths of the electors want licenses l«ick they have a right to have them.” I cannot agree with this. You seem to forget we are most unfairly handicapped when we have to cast our votes. Let me explain. In addition to a National vote enabling the Liquor Party to retain all licenses, it is also favoured with a special vote for restoring licenses In the No-License areas, while the Prohibitionists are denied a corresponding vote in a License area. So that while the booze party has the pow’er, if it secures sufficient votes, to re-introduce liquor liars, the Prohibition Party is unable to close a single bar unless it secures a Dominion-wide victory. This, I submit, should not Ik*. Such an injustice should lie remedied at the earliest opportunity by giving the electors power to close hotel bars within their own electorates, irrespective of how the National vote goes. Failing this, the present restor.ition vote in No-License districts should be withdrawn altogether. Then all electors would he on the same footing The position would not be so unsatisfactory if the original boundaries, w hen NoLicense was carried, had been retained. Through the work of the Boundary Commissioners the electorates are so hacked about that the character and personnel of a district may be entirely changed. This is often the case, and for this reason the retention of the Restoration vote is most unfair an*! absurd.—l am, etc., WALTER J. HELYER.