THE LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3932, 26 February 1884, Page 3

THE LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

[To tiie Editor of the Daily Telegraph.] Sib,—From tho little flutter already made in anticipation of the above event the public equilibrium is soon to be disturbed by the conflicting rights of property on the one side and rabid good templary on the other. I cannot conceive how there should exist any earthly reason for a respectable landlord to bo subjected to what is nothing more nor less than fanatical mob law. Local option is in itself a "sweet sounding cymbal" if judiciously used, but when systematically abused it is absolutely shorn of all its boauty, and becomes a lever propolled by vanity and ignorance, and effects no earthly good. On the contrary, it subjects the intellectual portion of the community, who are able to take care of themselves, to inconvenience and annoyance. If good templary, in all these years of its labor, has so far failed to impress upon its members tho evils of intemperance other than the sight of public houses, it is not creditable to the order that it can see no other way of evading , temptation than by closing them. It is to bo be hopod that the public will do its duty, and defend the liberty tho subject is entitled to enjoy, and on tho polling day take care not to havo that liberty surreptitiously snatched away. —I am, &c.| Observer. Napier, February 25, 1881.