Intolerence.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 October 1922, Page 1

Intolerence.

AN UNDEMOCRATIC LAW. (“ Lyttelton Times,” Christchurch.) A correspondent asks whether, if national prohibition is carried at next election, tho subject will he submitted to any further referendum of the people. The point raised is very important, and we are surprised that more attention has not been paid to it by our legislators, for as the law stands a decision in favour of prohibition at the next ]>oll would automatically remove the matter out of the hands of the electors. There would he no further poll on the issue. The prohibitionists are invited to emulate Bruce’s spider and to “try,, try, try again,” with the sure and certain knowledge that if by any fortuituos concurrence of circumstances they can snap a majority for their nostrum they can thereafter snap their fingers at public opinion, no matter how bitterly the community may repent of its decision.

As good Liberals wo believe in trusting the people with the making of laws, though we are not sufficiently rabid exponents of the democratic idea to declare that every subject under heaven is a. fit one for decision by popular vote. Wo should not, for instance, subscribe to the notion that a majority vote should lie taken as to the religious views to which the community must conform. It would he a deplorable thing in our eyes if some misguided Parliament decreed, even under the mandate of a popular referendum, that we must all be Roman Catholics and attend Mass, or Baptists, and go through the ceremony of baptism. Nor should we regard with favour a law, even based on a popular plebiscite, which prohibited the eating of flesh and made us nil vegetarians. Dietary and religion are private and personal affairs up to a certain point. If tlio dietary involves cannibalism and the religion demands tho extermination of all other sects, then the State has a sound political ground for interference, hut otherwise it is as well to let such sleeping dogs lie.

The history of the world is one long chronicle of troubles caused by narrow bigotry and intolerance, and we have no desire to see mediaeval history paralleled in modern New Zealand. However, the Parliament of this country in its wisdom decreed many years ago that a jiopular vote should decide whether alcoholic liquors shall or shall not he legally pur- . voveil. Bv the latest amendment to the Licensing Law that dispensation las been amputated of half its significance. It is now the law that if ever the people of this country decide that the use of alcoholic beverages is to he forbidden, their decision must he as the laws of the Medcs and Persians —once decreed it is to he irrevocable. We think that such an arrangement is nil infringement of the rights of democracy and a broach of the ordinary sporting rules of fair play. Also it is had politically and according to tho elementary rules of statecraft. Mr ,T. B. Reid, a Christchurch business man who is widely known and universally respected, writes to us (below) giving his impressions concerning the prohibition experiment in America. Ilis observations have led him to believe that national prohibition is not giving the results its advocates promised. Supposing that the electors of New Zealand came to the same conclusion ns Mr Reid has arrived at after a domestic experience of tho turmoil and disorder caused by an abrupt and authoritative revision of tl.cir dietary tastes, they would have no remedy whatever unless they chose to make the prohibition issue the one important political question for a scries of years—the test of every candidate for Parliamentary honours. There are so many reforms belter worth essaying, so many questions better worth discussion than that as to whether teetotallers should he allowed to compel everybody to. follow their example in regard to beverages, that we sincerely hope the people of New Zealand will not fall into the trap that has been laid for them. It is our duty to warn them that if they do it will he a. long and tedious business tn escape, as the experience of America proves.