HOTEL LICENSES AND PROHIBITIONISTS.

Motueka Star, Volume III, Issue 123, 17 October 1902, Page 4

HOTEL LICENSES AND PROHIBITIONISTS.

Hotel licenses and hotel property were never so valuable in the history New Zealand than they are at the present time, yet the Prohibition Party , are very confident of carrying “no license” in certain parts of the colony, especially in Otago, at the forthcoming local option poll. Speaka reception tendered at Dunedin to Mr T. E. Taylor, 3Vir A, S. Adams, a Temperance authority, said that the outlook had distinctly improved during the last six months, and their forces in Dunedin were now thoroughly united and well organised. In Invercargill, he mentioned, they had some hope of carrying no license. In Mataum the othei side had a sort of despairing hope that they might not carry it. In Ciutha no one for a moment ventured to doubt that the position would remain as it was. In Bruce both sides agreed that no license .was a certainty. In the Taieri they only wanted the same increase as was shqwn in the previous poll to have no’ license. In Dunedin there was considerably increased activity, st'hd a great number of the moderate party had been convinced of the righteousness of the prohibition cause. In Port Chalmers there was some reasonable hope while the prospects were encouraging in the Waikouati district. As for Oamaru, thev could not paint it redder than it was painted white just now on their question. Mr Taylor temarked, if prohibition comes, it will come first in Otago. Persons interested in the brewery and hotel trades are firmly convinced that Prohibition is as far away in New Zealand as ever it was, and they are supporting their view by the expenditure of large sums of money. Further, the Prohibition agitation, in preventing increase in the number of licenses, has vastly increased the monetary worth of existing privilege.