LOCAL OPTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 107, 10 April 1885, Page 2

It is officially notified that a poll of ratepayers will be held m the Town Hall, Pal meiston North, and ac Deards' Hall, Terrace End, to-mor-row to determine whether the number of licenses m the borough may or may not be respectively increased during the next three years. We think very little consideration will suffice to show that within the next three yeais Palraeraton will have made great strides. Within that period it will have been connected by rail both with Wellington and Napier, and should the loan . proposals be carried which we have little doubt), an era of very vapid progress and assured permanent material prosperity will have set m. It therefore behoves the ratepayers to make allowances for reasonable nnd probable contingencies. It would be very awkward were the vote of the ratepayers to veto an increase of licenses, to (md within a very short time that an increase was absolutely necessary. We think we need not pursue the subject further. To every unprejudiced mind it will be apparent that an increase of licenses before long is certain to be found desirable, and will be accepted by all as a sure proof that the place is beginning to forge ahead. We leave the matter m the hands of the latepayers to decide, asking them to use due discrimination before recording their votes m a way that might possibly tend to seriously retard or impede tho progress of the town as time goos on. It is an easy matter to decide, but a precipitate or ill-advised adverse decisiou might be the 'occasion for much unavailing regret heieaft* 1 ) 1 , when 100 lute. The matter should be considered m a liberal, practical, and common sense light ; keeping abstract social or Hectiirinu fcntuies fi'pnrl from the main point :it issue, which is one of veiy considerable significance hs affecting the future of this town tmd district.