THAT "THREE-FIFTHS" DIVISION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 74, 14 August 1912, Page 6

THAT "THREE-FIFTHS" DIVISION.

To the Editor. Sir G.H.M.'s letter published in today't issue of youT journal, dealing with the recent Parliamentary division on the 55 per cent, majority on the liquor question, was evidently written in the interests of "humour." I don't know who G.H.M. is, and I don't much care., Anonymous letters at any time are mostly an abomination. If G.H.M. is anxious about the settlement of the liquor question let him in future get right out into the open and 'his opinions will then probably carry more weight. What has he to growl about, anyhow? Did he expect any other result than defeat in connection with the aforesaid division? If he has watched licensing legislation during the past twenty years he must know that the Prohibition Party ihas been "fooled and juggled" with right along the line by the great majority of politicians in every Parliament. Furthermore, { let me tell G.H.M. that the "fooling and ' the jugglery" will continue ae long as the prohibition executive is prepared to take its "gruel" lying down. It would be quite safe to say that at any time during the past fifteen years the New Zealand Alliance could have instituted a campaign which would 'have ended in returning a Parliament that, during its first session, would 'have passed legislation giving the electors .power, on a democratic basis, to banish the liquor curse from our shores. But why have the prohibition leaders not undertaken such a campaign? Simply, in my humble opinion, because the strong party j politicians within their ranks have been more anxious to conserve the interests of their respective parties than to bring about the abolition of a traffic that, in' season and out of season, fchey rightly, and truly characterise as the blackest j and most fiendish • traffic in existence. | So th« wretched pooling and juggling" j game goes on. And so it will continue j until the leaders gain the courage of j their convictions and marshal the forces j of organisation at their command for a j determined and mighty onslaught upon j the "giant criminal of the centuries," I regardless of a party, creed or color. The j Prohibition Party has been flouted and insulted long enough by party politicians, and it is (high time our leaders discarded the "gloves" and instituted a "bareknuckle" campaign. Will' they do it?, I am, etc., W. H. HAWKINS. Tataraimaka, August 12, 1912.