The Press Wednesday, November 16, 1927. The Licensing Bill.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19159, 16 November 1927, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, November 16, 1927. The Licensing Bill.

In the speech in which he moved the second reading of the Licensing Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday, Mr Coates did not say, as he seems to have said the other day, that he is determined to keep the session going until the Bill, or a Bill, is passed. Except for the proposal that the electors should be forced to choose between Prohibition and Continuance, the Bill is not at all a bad one, and if that proposal, which disfranchises scores of thousands of electors, and impliedly affirms the theory that Prohibition is the only possible alternative to the existing system of distributing fermented liquor, were excised, the country could accept the Bill as a moderate-

ly good instalment of reform. There are enough Prohibitionists in the House, however, to make difficult or impossible the passage of the Bill so amended. Mr Coates hoped, no doubt, that the offer of a two-issue ballotpaper would induce the Prohibitionists to accept the sextennial poll and the 55 per cent, majority, and that these last-named proposals would reconcile

the opponents of Prohibition to the elimination of the " third issue." That his hope had no sound foundation has already been demonstrated by the hostile declarations that have come from all the organisations concerned. Even if the compromise had been accepted by the Alliance, the Licensed Trade, and the Licensing Reform Association, we should still have thought the two-issue ballot-paper a fatal defect in the Bill which nothing could counterbalance. But that point does not arise, because the Prohibitionists have no intention of accepting any compromise. They want Prohibition, and desire to get it by

hook or by crook —by misleading the electors •when they can, and by disfranchising those whom they cannot mislead. They claim that they have obtained from a majority of members of the House a pledge to vote for a twoissue ballot-paper, and they will probably claim that they have pledges from a majority to vote for the bare majority and the triennial poll. These pledges, if extracted at all, were not extracted coram publico, and nobody knows what consideration was given in return for them. We shall return to this subject of pledges extracted from candidates by sectional interests,' but we may say here that what the Prohibitionists claim amounts to this: that a House in which there is a majority of anti-Prohibition-ists may without offence foist a Prohibitionist Act upon a country which has over and over again declared against Prohibition. In the meantime it must be pointed out that although Mr Coates introduced his Bill as a measure which the House can rough-hew into any shape it pleases, he cannot divest himself of all responsibility. The reason he gave for proposing a two-issue ballot-paper is so flimsy that there can be no doubt in anybody's mind that'his real intention was that the contending parties should make i mutual concessions. There is an obligation upon him, therefore, to withdraw the Bill if the exchange of concessions is not accepted. We do not suppose, as a matter of fact, that the Bill will become law, but it may be hoped that the opponents of Prohibition, and these are a majority of members, will make it clear that they do not intend to assist the manoeuvres of the Prohibitionists in any way.