The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 15, 1905. THE LICENSING ISSUE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1627, 15 December 1905, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 15, 1905. THE LICENSING ISSUE.

The voting upon the licensing issues in the recent poll cannot be regarded by either side as decisive, but now that the returns are nearly a'l in it will be thought exceedingly satisfactory by the great majority of moderates who stand midway between the.opposing factions says the

Auckland Herald. The increase in the Prohibition vote is sufficient to show that

a very considerable degree of vitality still animates that powerful party, but it will be admitted by both sides that no such sweeping victories were recorded as the' Prohibitionists hoped for and the “ trade " feared. Very little change was made in the general complexion of the

colony, and the triumphant march anticipated by the Prohibitionists in the S'outh Island simply did not eventuate, If this means anything at all it means that the present movement has reached a e.limax, and though it may long be sustained as an important factor in our politics it can hardly go further as long as the “trade ” follows the policy it has wisely adopted. Many people once “ struck out the top line 1 ' because they regarded this as their

only effective form of protest against badly conducted hotels, and a number still do so with the same mental mo ive. But the strenuous efforts made by those interested to avoid offending, and to convince the public that those unfit to hold licenses are being steadily elinvnated from the trade is having its inevitable effect. There is increasing confidence in pob'ce supervision and in magisterial impartiality, and in the honest desire of the great majority of the “trade” to work well within the law and to help enforce the law. 1 his improving condi-

ion is strengthening the position taken ip by the moderates, that well-conducted icensed houses are infinitely to be pre-

ferred to disreputable sly grog places, and is finding expression in the vote on the licensing issues. The “reduction” vote is not maintaining its past place in the polling, and we should be surprised if it ever regained its recent strength.

'I here may always be a disposition in the public mind to resort to this referendum in order to express condemnation of any unpopular licensing procedure, but it may be very safely concluded that in scrupu'ous adherence to the licensing law on the part of all respectable hotel keepers—and there should be no other hotelkeepers—lies their best and most effective weapons against the Prohibition movement.