PROFESSOR HUNTER AND THE LIQUOR QUESTION.
Sir,—ln your issue of to-day, Professor Hunter, when commenting on the demand for the Biblo in schools, says that the referendum on tho liquor question, instead of ending that matter has had just tho opposite effect. I shall be glad to learn on what grounds the learned Professor ventures to make such an assertion. Surely he does not seriously call the present triennial vote a referendum. A system which gives the financially interested, the drunken, tlia dissolute, the wastrels of society, fifty per cent, more voting power than the Reform party enjoy, is tho very anthitliesis of a referendum.
I have never yet met a person who, having studied tho question, will support this iniquity, unless he has financial interests in the business, anil I am surprised that Professor Hunter can write 60 loosely on tho matter as he does in to-day's Dominion.
It may interest the younger generation of your readers to learn how this wicked and unjust handicap was forced 011 the movement for reform- A great wave of public opinion compelled Mr. Seddon, the then Premier, to do some-thing in the interests of tho Temperance cause, so ho decided to give every elecior a vote on tho licensing question.. But, unfortunately for tho party of progress, Mr. Seddon, who was ever loyal to the. interests of tho publican business to which ho formerly belonged, rendered tho vote almost nuga+ory by loading the temperance voters with a fifty per cent. handicap. Could Mr. Seddon, at that juncture, have only shaken himself • free from the old traditions of tho Trade, and given the people a straightout voto with majority rule instead of minority rulo as at present, tho liquor question would have long since received its quietus. A majority of 54,000 for destroying the liquor trade, root and branch, was recorded at. the last poll, yet bccnusc vested! interests are considered of more moment than the real welfare of the community, the trade is allowed to continue its death, dealing business in our midst. —I am, etc., ■ ' A SQUAKB DIJAL. f May 19, 1913. '
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Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1755, 21 May 1913, Page 4
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351PROFESSOR HUNTER AND THE LIQUOR QUESTION. Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1755, 21 May 1913, Page 4
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