THE TRADE IN VICTORIA.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 17, 19 July 1884, Page 3

THE TRADE IN VICTORIA.

(advertisement.) Wherever public meetings have been held — and they bave taken place in many parts of the colony — to consider the question of local option and minor reforms arising from the traffic, such as the grocer's license, strict Sunday closing, and the withdrawal of barmaids, almost without exception the expressed opinion has been in favor of reform. The dailj press as represented by the Age and Telegraph, has rendered incalculable service to the agitation for popular control by the timely and unanswerable presentation of tbe arguments in its favor, and it is evident on all hands that the pro visions of the expected measure will be scrutinised with throbbing anxiety. The growth of popular sentiment in regard tc tbe evils of the traffic is world-wide, anc where political power is placed in th< hands of the people this sentiment mus find expression in legislation. The Nev, York Evening Post says upon this ques tion, the growth of opinion has beei rapid all over the world, and " that th< next great step in the amelioration of th< conditions of the human race must be tb< destruction or great diminution of th< and sale of spirituoui ■; white the N.Y. Mail and Ex press declares that " the war that nov seems impending would pay its way fron the start, in the scores ot millions o money and thousands of priceles immortal souls saved by the first gram movement for the suppression of th traffic." Indeed, when an attempt ii made calmly to estimate the manifoh miseries, inflicted by the drink-curse, th mind shrinks appalled from the task, anc we are filled with astonishment that i should be w permitted to carry on it desolating career. ■ Before our next issu the Government will probably have dis closed their hand, when We shall be in position to., determine .whether thei proposals nre such as to entitle them t public approval, or whethei.we shall hay to continue agitation nntill the mind o of th*e people is adequately voicediTemperance News.