The Licensing Bill.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 209, 7 September 1904, Page 2

The Licensing Bill.

MANIFESTO FROM NEW ZEALAND ALLIANCE. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 0. In a manifesto, just issued on the Licensing Hill the New Zealand Alliance declares that the bill strikes in its most essential provisions at Uie very root of the powers which the people have enjoyed without interruption since ' 1893. The power to Mliice is now being entirely tuken away, and the power to abolish is so 'hampered, confused, and stultified by the intrusion of other distracting issues thut the people will 1» loft with the shadow ci their old power and with but a remnant ol

its substance. The elimination <n the reduction issue which i.s proposed by clause 3 must be .strenuously fought as a violation at

once of the democratic right and of public faith. The theory of democracy implies the right to reduce licenses as a:n equally essential part of the people's power with Hie right to. continue or . abolish. I liejn, and tJw obligations of the public honour make at imperative that such a power shall never he repeal.Hi except with the full consent of those to whom it belongs. The manifesto goes on to state that the light of refusing the grant of licenses altogether is not threatened with the same direct repeal as the reduction vote, but it is to bo insidiously perplexed and encumbered in u liinniier that may yield equally satisfactory results to the champions of ."The Trade." The aim of clause « of last year's bill was to make the possession of liquor a crime In a noliccnsu district. The electors were to have no choice except renewing every license or branding every drinker as a criminal. Clause 10 of the new bill is a repetition of the old clause 9, but the new clause 9 makes the operation contingent upon another popular vote. Another additional ballot paper is to be provided on which the voter will say whether in My event of no-license being carried he desires that its effect should be to make drinking a crime in the district. To make the possession of liquor a crime, the effective detection of which would require the correlative night of seaicb in every home, would, the manifesto declares, be to establish a n odious and inquisitorial tyranny utterly foreign to the fundamental principles Of British law and to the whole spirit of British liberty. With r^ Pd A° t C i 1 , al,Se 24 ""= manifesto states that there is no evidence that one per cent, of the electors of the colony have asked for State control. The manifesto concludes as follows ; •■ We demand, therefore, the WBht of the people to reform that Part of their public policy which ■censed public tars are tho«J?t fa™ of the young and the seed-beds of vice and crime. We demand the right 0 f the public to con rol puWie p„ licy , J t „£ £ of that control being coupled with "T* 1 " y ■" Interference ™ l * '~ acts.and private ha£ .'ts which stop short of beta* a ■public nuisance. We protest "giins? the threatened invasion of the ."h !^L O,U,e ."omobyi„s P cctl™ Z Police, « Kamst t ,. pspio ° cause 9 Would produce, a g nins , t ° strained relations a „ i »>nt w0,,,,, against the incentives to i„ 'm of the peace on the and self-respeotmg Mrcn wl^ a amj n Ec^?' '"nipt to handicap , m „ Th ™- refo,4,';ra a t a rngt ■t an unprecedented invasion of D . vate rights and liberties."- P