WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1928, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

LICENSING QUESTION

ANOTHER RILL PROMISED

(Special to “Guardian”.)

WELLINGTON, .May 25

The deputation from the annual conference of the New Zealand Alliance, the legislative and administrative executive of the Prohibition movement in this country, which waited upon the Prime .Minister yesterday, at least had the satisfaction of securing from Mr Coates a promise that another Licensing Pill would he brought before Parliament during the approaching session. It need not bo assumed from the readiness of the Primo Minister to concede this part of the deputation’s request, however, that his own views in regard to the licensing question have undergone any great change (luring the recess, lie was careful to make this point clear for himself. “ l think it is the almost general desire of members of Parliament, and of a greater number of people,” lie said, ” that some attempt should be made again to see whether or not the question should be settled.” Those, of course, wore very cogent arguments for giving the House of Representatives another opportunity to convince the Legislative Council that the two-issue ballot-paper and the bare majority were things tli country desired. NERVOUS AND CONCERNED. Put while accepting the position as he found it, Mr Coates confessed that he had doubts about the expediency of some of the measures that had been commended to him. “I am nervous and concerned,” be confessed, “as to whether a change in our system would take place, and we may not get com plete and definite compliance with the law.” It was plain enough he viewed with some trepidation the prospect ot the full realisation of the Prohibitionists’ programme; but he sent the reasonable members of the deputation away with a feeling that he had been frank with them and that they would be given “ n cloni* run,’’ by the Government. 'Whether or not the Legislative Council will accept another Pill from the elected chamber facilitating the way towards prohibition as a mandate from the people remains to he seen; but the Alliance maintains that this would he the constitutional course and it is not without authority at its back. This really is the point upon which the fate of -the forthcoming licensing bill depends. THE THIRD ISSUE, Mr Charles Todd, the president of the Alliance, when addressing the Minister, made a very special point of the removal of the third issue from the ballot paper. He regarded the issue apparently, as an obstacle placed in the way of the Prohibitionists by tliqi opponents and designed merely to defeat the wishes of a majority of the electors. But Mr Todd knows, or ought to know, as well as do other intelligent people who have looked into this matter, that it is the manner in which the third issue is presented to the electors, not the third issue itself, that confused the voting on the licensing question. Under a system of optional voting any elector having State Control as first choice could vote Continuance or Prohibition as his second clioire and so ensure the will ol a majority of the voters being actually expressed. It is all very well for the friends of Prohibition to be disclaiming against the third issue, but they offer no other resort to the sixty or seventy thousand people who will be wanting to vote State Control this year. MAJORITY RULE.

If Mr 'Todd and his friends re illy understood the effect of the third issue upon the ballot paper, and were anxious to secure majority rule, they would not he so anxious as they seem to he at present to drive flic licensing poll hack into a contest between the two extremes. The issue Stale Purchase and Control first appeared on the ballot paper in 1019 and secured 32.20 L votes, against 211,251 accorded to National Continuance and 270,250 accorded to National Prohibition. In 1922 the State Control vote increased to 25,727 and in 1925 to 46,037. between 1919 and 1925 the State Control vote increased by 73.7 per cent while the National Continuance vote increased hy only 24.2 per cent, and the National Prohibition hy only 18.2 per cent.. These results, it must he remembered were recorded under a system of voting which placed State Control in a hopeless position, between the firing of Continuance and Prohibition, and gave it no chance of being considered on its merits by tho great body ,ot electors.