The Fielding Star. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, DEoi 20, 1893. The Alcoholic Control Act.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 196, 20 December 1893, Page 2

The Fielding Star. Published Dail y. WEDNESDAY, DEoi 20, 1893. The Alcoholic Control Act.

The interest in the licensing laws of the colony is gradually becoming more intense as the time approaches for the election of Licensing Committees, and for deciding whether publican's licenses shall be continued as at present, or that they be reduced, or that no licenses be granted. One of the best and most original letters on this subject was published recently in the New Zealand Times. The writer pointed out that for the purposes of the poll it is enacted that only half the electors need vote. If three-fifths of that half are in favor of abolishing all licenses, they are to be abolished. Now, three-fifths of a half are threetenths, that is somewhat less than a third ; consequently we arrive at the fact that by this measure the Temperance people may be able to shut up the hotels— not by a bare majority, 88 they insist, tha£j& somewhat more than half of the total roll, but by less than a third. And further, now that the dead aud absent are removed from the roll, the old vis inertia of not voting at all will toll against, instead of for, the liquor people. It may be taken as beyond question that half the electors on the roll will vote. The process of purging will tell mostly on the men, and reduce their numbers almost to an equality, in the large towns at anyrate, with the women. The latter, thus forming nearly onehalf, solid on the Temperance ticket too, are sure to turn up at the booths in full force. Together with them the Temperance men will make the requisite half power a certainty. The half roll being thus secured, the more ' the publicans and their Monde, and the opponents of Prohibition pure aud simple, abstain from voting the more likely it is that the three- fifths, which will smash all licenses, will be secured. If the believers in moderation, but not in Prohibition, are foolish enough to rely on passivo resistance, then in overy electorate like Wellington the Temperance people will be able, if they want to, to sweep away all licenses, and the people will wake up ( on the morrow to find the hotels' closed for three years. Until I had studied the Act J had no idea of the enormous power recent changes have conferred on Temperance advocates, and I must confess to a feeling of surprise at the remarkable hostility shown by them to the tremendous engine placed in their hands. I think it is well to point out that the new Act seems to contain not only Prohibition by a bare majority, but by a bare third, which the moat advanced teetotallers have never asked for." This is very well put, because while it apparently, at least, meets the chief objections of the Temperance party, it also places before those engaged in tke trade the pitfalls and quicksands they have to avoid.