LOCAL OPTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1231, 2 October 1885, Page 3

LOCAL OPTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

The woiking of the local option system in this Colony has enabled a writer in th • Melbourne Argus to point a. moral while comm ntiug on the Licensing Bill before the Parliament of Victoria as follows ■ The taking of a *• local option " vote is a new thing in this Col mv. No inquiry or ev donee has been sought for as to the workin? of it in other places, although such evidence might easily have been procured From.Ne v Zetland there is plenty of testimony thnt nothing wdl induce the average Taxpaying citlzm to give a vote on this question one way or the other ; that over and over again decisions inv living the property and livelihood of hotelkeepers have been arrived at by the vo e of a me'e f-ao lion of the ratepayers < n the roll. Why this hap- ens is obvious. Brown, Jones, and Robinson don’t care, and can't be got to care, whether there are 13 or seven hotels in their district. A though there are many declarations that drunkenness is the cause of c irae, and so forth, no evidence is forthcoming that the reduction of hotels from 18 to seven has ever betrayed morals or manne s anywhere. Avenge citizens see no evidence of it, and they won’t walk across the street to vote on each a question. Who does vote then ? In the •irsc place, the publicans and half-a-dozen of his friends will vote on one side. On the other side every teetotaller wi’bin hail who can be enliste 1 to come to the poll, or (with the best of motives) will be waiting ♦ o personate an elector an 1 watching for weeks before ih-- eb-ori m*o vote ft the annihilation of the bad hotelkeepers, whom he hates. Tins sort of thing has happened iepe» f elly in New Z a'and, and is n record. Tn« same indiff aenca on the part of the gemTal pubic, ihe same solid voting on the pirt of tee ntaMe a, would have bee ' seen here. If it had nor been for the clear sighted honesty of certain nemherg of the Xsgenih v—if, in other words, sectio s 26 an I 27 had heeoine law as they original! v stoo l, 10 should have een “local option” vo'ing of ting kind hronghnnb Victoria—lollo eleotom on the ■oils; fur confiscation. Sd teetotallers; a.'ainat. e mfiscation 15 white mn. That is a large estim i e. and no one knows better chan the teetotallers themselves that some thing of hi- ki.nl wo i d haveo itaine here. They counted on t ; it was their m lin hold, they have, however, been “found 0n:,," an! certainly no honest mm can feel very sorry.