LOCAL OPTION IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3774, 24 September 1907, Page 3

LOCAL OPTION IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Sydney, Saturday. The local option poll returns are now complete. Out of 79 electorates, 62 voted for Reduction and 16 for Continuance.

An interesting interview was obtained with Mr G. B. Nicholls, who has recently returned from New South Wales, where (says the Otago Daily Times) he spent his leave by taking a prominent and strenuous part in connection with the local option poll. Rather unfortunately, Mr Nicholls was called away on the very day the final results were to be announced. Notwithstanding this, he was able to give much interesting information as to the headwa5 r the No-license and Reduction parties were making in New South Wales. This, he said, would virtually mean the taking away of from four to six hundred licenses in the State. Mr Nicholls went on to explain that this is generally due to the different method of casting votes in vogue in New South Wales. There, there are three issues—No-license, Reduction, or License—the same as in New Zealand, but in New South Wales people are only permitted to vote for one issue, while in New Zealand they mav vote for two. In New South Wales, if No-license is not carried, the votes cast for Nolicense are added to those for Reduction, and both together count against the Continuance vote. Under such a system, he believed every area in New Zealand would have carried Reduction at the last poll. In New South Wales, a wider range existed between the maximum and minimum of hotels that may be closed Reduction, In electorates that have 40 hotels or over, at least four licenses must be refused. In the Albury electorate, in which Mr Nicholls worked, this means a choice for the licensing bench of between four and sixteen licenses, there being 64 liquor-selling establishments in that electorate. In other electorates, Mr Nicholls said, the variations were even greater. Two of the metropolitan electorates contain i6o- licensed houses in each, but these, he understood, had carried Reduction. If the full quota .were closed it meant closing 40 in each case. Personally he believed that the full quota would not be dealt with. The court deciding the matter is composed of a judge and two magistrates already the chairman of licensing boards. The public could not elect committees as they could in New Zealand. Strenuous efforts would be made in each case to induce such benches to declare the full quota in each case. In the meantime every effort was being made to collect evidence from neighbours and others as to the places being badly conducted. The people of New South Wales greatly envy New Zealand its power to elect, committees pledged to full power reduction.

lii Mr Nicliolls’ opinion the most salient feature in the New South Wales campaign was the solidarity of the women’s vote. This was very apparent in canvassing. The women were wholehearted in their sympathy with the reformer. They were in many cases out. of the way, and knew but little of the world* but they were nearlj 7 always read}’ to vote on the side of Prohibition. If the women of Dunedin had voted with the solidarity of those women of New South Wales, Dunedin would have carried No-license. “We know, of course,” said Mr. Nicholls, “ that a large number of men voted for No-license; therefore it stands to reason that a very large number of women must have voted for License.” He thought this was due to the efforts made by the opposition in New Zealand persuading people that rents, rates, etc., would be raised enormously. Such an idea was now played out in New Zealand. Rates, etc., had not been raised in Prohibition districts, and in Invercargill, the largest Prohibition city, the rates had been slightly reduced. Mr Nicholls went on to say that this brought up another important difference between New South Wales and New Zealand, In the latter, licensing fees went to the cities, but in New South Wales to the central Government. This harping on the alleged loss of revenue that would follow Prohibition must now only appeal to those who were only too anxious to 1 believe anything calculated to militate against the temperance cause. In this regard it was easy to see that New South Wales had been materially assisted by circumstances, and easily explained the readiness of people to vote for a reduction of licenses, as the city in which they lived could not possibly lose by their so doing.