LOCAL OPTION EXTENSION.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 387, 24 July 1889, Page 5

LOCAL OPTION EXTENSION.

Every session the temperance advocates in the House bring up a motion for extending; their principles. Yesterday afternoon Mv Withy, for Mr Fulton, moved as lollows : — Whereas the enormous direct expenditure on intoxicating liquors iv the colony amount, annually to more than two millions sterling, contributes largely to the existing depression, adds materially to crime and poverty, and reduces the capital available for reproductive industries ; and whereas the people under the existing law are powerless to remove the principal cause of these evils, it is in the opinion of this House imperative that the Government should without delay introduce a Bill giving power to the people by direct vote at the ballot box, periodically taker, to prohibit the sale ot such liquors within the district in which they reside. He pointed out that he did not propose any new principle, but asked for an extension of the existing system, which enabled the public to vote whether or not there should be any inciease of licensed premises, but gave them no ricrht to declare for a reduction of the number or the prohibition of the sale of intoxicants. JNlr Goldie supported the motion, speaking to it at some length. The motion on being put to a division was carried by 36 to 26.