THE PREMIER'S REPLY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2549, 31 August 1893, Page 3

THE PREMIER'S REPLY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sik,—-The following telegram was received by me from the Premier re the resolution come to on Sunday night:— " Telegram to hand; regret decision arrived at. Bill fairly meets what necessities country present demands. If extremes resorted to very great danger of losing everything. L'eforms must be gradual. The fact of having the control of liquor traffic under the direct control of the people is a great gain. "R. J. Seddon, " Wellington."

No doubt Mr Seddon regrets decision, and I venture to say his regret on this score will be deepened day by day as he comes to find that he has made one of the greatest mistakes of his life. What intuitive knowledge enables him to say that the "Bill meets the necessities which the country at present demands " 1 Why then the meetings from Auckland to the Bluff denouncing and repudiating this Bill 1 Does he constitute himself a dictator who shall determine what the country needs and what it does not need ? j The country asks and demands a free I hand in solving the drink problem, and a Premier who never tireß boasting of his Liberalism refuses to accord it to them. Is this Liberalism ? The reference to reforms being gradual reveals the cloven hoof, and shows the Premier's object in bringing in this Bill. One of the questions he in semblance proposes in this measure to submit to the people is, "Do you want any public-houses or not ?" but he takes care to block the way to a negative answer; and now we have his own reading of it, i.e., " reform must be gradual." Thank you, Mr Seddon, for the acknowledgment, but again 1 say this treatment of a great question, this attempt to hoodwink and bamboozle the people, is anything but fair or liberal. Who is so fit to decide as the people whether reforms that touch them at all points shall be gradual or not 1 " The fact of having the control of the liquor traffic under the direct control of the people " would be a great gain if we had it without Mr Seddon's absurd and illiberal qualifications. What doss he mean by saying that "if extremes resorted to very great danger of losing everything " 1 Does he mean danger of losing prestige in Parliament or at the next elections 'I I'm afraid he has taken the fair way of losing it. Does he mean danger of losing every vestige of the drink traffic ? Then we can understand him fighting for what many would like to see relegated to the barbarous and inhuman customs of the past. Or does he mean, posing as a temperance reformer—like Saul among the prophets —danger of getting no measure temperance legislation passed in the present House 1 Better we should not, if what Sir Robert Stout says has any shadow of truth, that the present House of Representatives is dominated by the liquor trade. We prefer not to take " Gifts from the Greeks," but wait until the general elections come round, when I believe an over whelming majority will be returned pledged to accord the right of exercising the Direct Veto by simple majority of those polled without restriction or qualification.—l am, etc., John Dickson, Chairman of Temuka Direct Veto Association.