Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1892. More Drunkenness.

Manawatu Herald, 11 June 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1892. More Drunkenness.

» The more respectable portion of the working men are setting their faces strongly against the excessive use of alcoholic liquors, and rightly so. The very best point in the Knights of Labour organisation is the teetotal agreement. The present government have been too ready to pander to some of the worst wishes of the labour agitators that it is much to be deplored to notice their non-atten-tion to their better desires. It appears that the " heaviest " Ministry are finding that beer adds considerably to that which one of their number considers an important consideration, and that he that brews beer has also weight which at the early election may be most convenient. "Whatever however, their

reasons may be, they have, undoubtperpetrated a great Wrong to the Native race. In the " Licensing Act 1881 " clause 25 gives the Governor power, on the application of the owners of any area of Native land on which no publican's license has been hitherto granted, by proclamation in the Gazette to declare that no license shall be granted within any such area, and it shall not be lawful for the Licensing Com mittee to issue any license to take effect therein. In 1884, a proclamation was issued by Governor Jervois declaring that no license should be granted within a certain area. At Otorohanga within Ihe Orahiti block, a portion of the area proclaimed by the Governor in 1884, live two half-casts who have expressed a desire to seen an hotel erected upon their property. These gentlemen evidently see a "good thing "in this bad thing if they succed in getting it properly carried out. Their property is one acre situated in a central position within this proclaimed area, and they would thus hold a valuable monopoly for the sale of poison. What "these owners have done, or are about to do, for the government, has yet to be ascertained, but what the government have done for them has been clearly set forth in the Gazette of the 14th April, a proclamation having been made excepting the prohibition issued against this block, as far as it concerns this one acre ! The government ignore the advantages and wishes of a large number of the Native race to put money into the pocket of two halfcaste owners of one acre of ground. Could worse be done ? Fortunately this action is not to be allowed to go unchallenged, and unknown, as the President of the New Zealand Alliance, Sir William Fox has addressed a letter to the Premier in reference to the proclamation. With regard to the consent alleged to have been received from the natives, he says : — " The Alliance is informed that no such consent has been expressed, nor request preferred, by the collective owners of the block in which the issue of licenses was prohibited in 1884, and I am instructed by the Council of the Alliance respectfully to request you to inform it who are the natives who requested the revocation of the one-acre licensing district referred to in the proclamation of April last, and when, where and how their consent was obtained. I will only add that the creation of the one-acre licensing district, and the granting of a license to a public house within the original limits, would practically mean the abolition of prohibition over all the rest of the original distriot, as it would become the centre of distribution over the whole of it."