WELLINGTON NOTES,

Hokitika Guardian, 1 March 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES,

(Our Specinl Correspondent)

THE LICENSING POLL

THE RESULT AND THE FUTURE, WELLINGTON February 27. The result of the licensing poll held at the time of the general election has not yet been declared. It is known, of course, that Continuance and State Control in combination scored a small majority over Prohibition, but probably the exact figures will not be announced tili next week. The counting and recounting and checking have occupied an unprecedented time, and there have been many rumours of informalities and irregularities haying been discovered, but so far as can be gathered from the officials of the Electoral Department and the leaders of the contending parties there is little prospect of the rosult being seriously challenged. The Prohibitionists are said to have evidence of a number of cases of roll-suffing and impersonation, but it is unlikely they will submit is to the decision of a. court of law. The mimtber of votes at stake is not large enough to disturb the official return and the mere reduction of the antiprohibition majority would serve no useful purpose. CONTINUING THE FIGHT.

But the Prohibitionists after a leisurely review of the situation are by n > means discouraged by their defeat. They are confident that the pr ig’vss their cause made between 1914 and 1919 will be continued and accelerated between 1920 and 1922, and that with a clear cut issue between Continuance and Prohibition or even with the three-issue ballot pa. per and preferential voting, they will be sure of success. They claim that the new House of Reps is the most friendlv one they ever have had and that it may be trusted to give them a “square deal” on the next appeal to the electors. They do not deny by the way, that in the recent election campaign their sympathies lay largely with the Reformers They did not associate themselves with any party organisation, but they regarded Mr Ma «? v as the author of six o’clock closiag and were grateful accordingly. They retained the highest regard for Sir Joseph Ward personally and politically, but they regretted the fact, as they now are putting it, of most of thechampions of the liquor trade gravitating towards his camp. THE TRADE.

The friends of the Trade and the Moderates, on the other hand, maintain that the Prohibitionists reached the very zenith of their voting strength at the last poll. They argue that a confusion of thought between war necessities and peace efficiency led many people to vote for prohibition who never before had favoured this drastic measure. Added to this was the over, confidence of the Moderates that the voting of December would be a repetition of the voting of April and that no special effort on their part was required. That they miscalculated the strength of their opponents the v frankly confess. Their policy for the future will lie to purge the Trade of its admitted evils and to bring the electors to recognise the injustice of abolishing without reasonable compensation a business that has been built up during a period of sixty or seventy yeans with the warrant, and approval of the public. All this suggests that the Trade itself is no longer opposed to the idea of State Control.

PROBAMLE LEGISLATION

Though the present Parliament will have to deal with the existing licensing law in ono way or another before the next poll, the Government is not likely to be in any hurry to tackle the problem. Mi- Massey, who, in view of the new conditions, should not be tied down too closely to anything he has said on tho subject in the past, so far ha s not shown himself well disposed towards State Control. But any views he may hold on the extension of the State’s activities in this direction need not prevent him from retaining the third issue on the balotl paper and submitting it to tlie electors under a system of preferential voting. This would appeal to the democratic section of the community by giving all the parties be “square deal ” the prohibitionists are expecting and might finally dispose of the “proprietary interest,” which, after all, lias been the disturbing influence right through the years of controversy.