WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 December 1927, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

LICENSING HILL KILLED. BY NOMINATED CITAAIBEIL (Special to “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON. Dec. 5. The Legislative Council drove a sufficient number of nails into the roflin of the Licensing; Bill to ensure the ellective interment of the measure, for the present session at any rate. The second readino debate fureslutdowod the impending' Imrial plainly enough. Obviously :i majority of the speakers were in for mending; rather than ending! the liquor traffic. They pleaded lor the restoration of the clauses expunged from the Bill by the House of Representatives, not because they were concerned for the traffic or for the people associated frith it ; but because they wished to protect the interests of the eountrv and to save it from turmoil and financial embarrassment. Some of these timid souls proclaimed themselves out-and-out believers in " no-liecuse,”

Tint tliev wanted it hedged around b\ the precautions the Prime Minister had insisted upon in his original Bill. The Hon. J. B. Gow. who had taken charge of the Bill when it came up from the House with the Prime Minister’s imprimatur withdraw n did his best in the difficult position thrust upon him. It was Sir Robert Stout, however. who met the subtleties from the other side “ four-square ’’ and reduced the various problems involved to their true dimensions. Hut every member of the Council had made up his mind on the main issue before and the division lists told the rest of the tale. A FRANK CONFESSION.

The feature of the committee stage of the proceedings was a statement made by Sir Francis Bell, whose clear vision and robust independence no one will question. ” I yield to no one in my desire to see prohibition carried in this country. and .1 hope to see it an accomplished fact in my life-time.” Sir Francis said, but 1 want a six-year period to enable prohibition to receive a fair trial. The monopoly tnat exists has been created by ibe prohibitionists. Wo have to admit that. ft was the success gained by the Prohibition Party in preventing any increase in the number of licenses that has created the monopoly. It I could arrange that a pull for the prohibition of liquor should be taken every three years, but that the restoration poll should not be taken for six \ears. I would gladly do so. I think that if prohibition is carried by a small majority, and there is a restoration poll in three years’ time, there will be perpetual liquor disturbance. The liquor party has more money than we have, and we camiot get any security for prohibition with only a three wars’ tenure, . . I have two beliefs —that prohibition is a good thing, and that with a fair trial it will stay. Coining from such a source this declaration should console the prohibitionists for many of their disappointments. ROTTEN FINANCE. Naturally the Hon. W. Downie Stewart. the Minister of Finance, was perturbed b\- the somewhat crude fashion in which Sir Joseph Ward denounced his Finance Bill. Sir Joseph seems to have conveyed to the Minister the 1 idea that it was the finances of the Dominion that he was, c riticising, w hile really it was the method of financing disclosed by the Minister's Rill. 01 course there was a wide difference between the two points. On his own admission, however, it was plain Mr Stewart himsell

was not quite satisfied with the finances of the Dominion. On Friday night, after admonishing Sir Joseph AYard lor having cast discredit, as he thought, upon the finances of the l Dominion, he admitted quite frankly that he was not altogether satisfied with the position himsell. After agreeing with Sir Joseph that loan expenditure was heavy and that loans, as lar as possible should he devoted to revenueproditciiig purposes, lie proceeded to tell the House that " it was questionable whether railways were not going out of date as a means of transport ” ; that “ the further the railways were extended the greater the burden they imposed noon the taxpayers and that in some eases *' it would be better from an economical view to close the railways clown and pay interest on their construction than pay their heavy operating costs." Sir Joseph Ward can hardly have expected a more generous concession to his views. BRAINS OF THE COUNCIL.

In the Legislative Council on Saturday. Sir Francis Bell, in submitting the Finance Bill to the ( linmher he controls with such conspicuous ability and admirable tact, deemed it desirable to modify in some measure the admissions made by his comparatively voting colleague in " the other place ”,

The £1.030.030 provided for in the Bill, bo. explained, was to be borrowed to carry on public works that were actually in baud and bad to be completed ; but it must be remembered that while the Government was borrowing that sum forspuhlie works it was providing out of revenue the £1,000,000 lor the Singapore Base. “It is easy,” Sir Francis went on to say, “ to ask the Government to watch how borrowing is increasing, but 1 ask members to watch how the greater part of the borrowed money is being spent mostly oil reproductive works and to note that nearly up to onc-lmlf of the money is owned in this country.” The Government, he continued, was not carrying on unnecessary works or building “ political railways ” and unnecessary branch

lines. With tile Government the heads of tlie Public Services were working with 1111 eye to economy. The .Minister of Finance kept it very keen eye on the public purse, especially the Public Works Fund. The concluding sentence is a pretty compliment to Mr Downie Stewart, hut it does not clothe him with authority.