CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 159, 14 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE " ALL OR NONE" LIQUOR BILL In pondering over the new Liquor Bill, one is able to see infinite possibilities for dissention and argument. Whatever eminent brewers may say as to t!:e probable loss to their business, it is essentially a Bill by -which the liquor interest will 'score should it become law. At least this is a fair presumption. Although there were 221,471 voters in 1908 who voted no-license it cannot be assumed, except by a fanatic, that all these people would have voted' "no-liquor" if that issue had been before the electors at the time. To put it inildly, the elector will be dragooned into voting "all or none," and as quite a large proportion of the

) people who vote prohibition drink alcohol ibecause the race lias been drinking it for a thousand years, they will very possibly object to this forcible method. One party may from its point of view believe that their desire for total abolition should be forced on everybody, but a legislative effort to force a whole country into "dryness 1 ' or "wetness" will completely estrange the "moderates." The moderate who is used to alcohol and who has voted ''no-license" hitherto will possibly not be single-souled enough to wipe out all alcohol for the sake of his brother who is not moderate. This may be the stand he should take, but he "certainly will not. The condition that all votes for no-license count also for national prohibition is a very line concession to the trade, although it appears to be favorable to the prohibition party. The total adult abstainers from alcohol in Xew Zealand > could not carry local no-license in any . district. They have to be helped by , people who do not totally abstain but who are antagonists of the beer mono--1 poly. A 'large proportion of these people, therefore, will not vote ''no-liquor" ■ when the national issue is before the country.

MATRIMONY AND BANKS. "Love laughs at locksmiths," but not at banting directors, who are permitted not only to say how some members of their staffs shall conduct their business life, but to restrain their private lives. A barbarous bank regulation exists whereby a man is prohibited from marrying until he earns £2OO a year. Seeing that a bawk can prevent its employers obtaining this delirious annual sum during the whole course of the servant's services, it would appear that a number of broken hearts, soured spinsters and crabbed bachelors have been made by the regulation. Banks, of course, have no soul, and the presumption is that a married man couldn't possibly be honest on £2OO a year. The banks may have in their employ men who will never be able to earn the sum named, and who must therefore, take one of three courses: (1) Leave the bank; (2) marry surreptitiously; (3) remain single. Most men trainee! in a bank remain in the profession. The man who was unablelto reach the minimum wage on which he was entitled to get married would probably not be able to earn more outside a bank—and might even fail away from the work for which he is trained. To be an ordinary, everyday, natural man and to marry because he wanted to would cause his dismissal. To remain single would be a very good reason why a bank should keep him on £l6O a year to the age of sixty. The Premier has promised that anything the Government can do in the direction of lifting tne awful prohibition will be done. For our part, we can't see why a clerk should be doomed to celibacy and a manager be permitted the ordinary freedom of contract that most men possess. On the other hand, the banks may be in the habit of ascertaining the matrimonial intentions of lesser paid officials, and of coming to the rescue with the necessary increase. But this is not likely.