Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1910. THE LICENSING BILL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10115, 10 October 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1910. THE LICENSING BILL.

The Licensing Act Amendment Bill, introduced last week hs the Prime Minister, is one of the most palpable attempts to side-track, hoodwink, and mislead the public that a Government has ever dared to perpetrate in this country. Speciously contrived, cunningly arranged, and ingeniously worded, it is designed to inveigle the public and to capture the sympathies of both sides on this great social question by artifice and political fraud. A superficial examination of the Bill reveals what appear to be a number of important democratic concessions; but a closer scrutiny of the measure discloses an impudent attempt to confuse the issues and to throttle public opinion as expressed at the polls. The very form of the balot paper is sufficient to condemn the Bill. Imagine an elector who despises local option, but favours the wiping out" of the drink traffic lock, stock, and ban-el, being compelled to vote for both reforms if he votes for either! There are scores, nay hundreds of people who consider that the closing of hotel bars is only a temporary expedient, and who yearn for the day when the manufacture, sale, and importation of alcohol shall be entirely prohibited. This is the natural goal of many true reformers. On the other hand, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of people who would vote for the hotel bars being closed provided that they could procure what they required for their own consumption. The Government, by one fell swoop, proposes to compel these people to vote 'or the retention of the open bar or to record their votes in favour of the entire abolition of the grog traffic. No middle course is provided. ,A man will not be able to say, as at present, "I believe the, open bar to be a source, of evil and of temptation, and I will i vote to have it abolished." If he votes for local No-license, he also votes for the prohibition of the manu- I facture, sale, and importation throughout the. Dominion, and vice versa,. And, in recording this vote, he is brought face to face with the fact that the majority required to carry prohibition has been reduced from 60 to 55 in every hundred. What will be the result? The very "concession." which it is claimed has been given the No-licensc party will be used as a weapon against them. With the knowledge that every vote recorded for the closing of the open bar is a vote to prohibit the manufacture and importation of liquor, thousands who previously voted Nolicense will vote continuance. Thus will the efforts of local reformers be rendered atigaiory. The issues con-

tained in the new form of ballotpaper are a daring though none the less direct outrage of public sentiment. That they will be exposed in their true light, and that their full bearing upon the great social question will be emphasised in Parliament, goes without saying. The proper democratic course for the Government to have pursued was to have submitted the two issues separately, and have had them decided on a bare majority. By this means |a bare majority in a district could determine on continuance or No-license, and the same majority over the whole Do- I minion could determine whether the manufacture, sale, and importation of alcoholic liquors should be continued or abolished. This was the honest course. But honesty is not a characteristic of our Parliamentary institutions to-day. It is safe to say, however, that this latest attempt to trifle with public sentiment will meet with the absolute failure that its flagrant dishonesty deserves. So far as the minor provisions in the new Licensing Bill are concerned, they are hardly worthy of serious discussion. With the elimination of the reduction issue very few will be disposed to disagree. The repeal of the clause requiring half the electors to go to the ballot before the poll is valid is not unreasonable. The registration of barmaids will satisfy nobody, while the attempt to make it illegal for any person under twentyone years of age to procure liquor will scarcely be regarded as a sufficient compensation for the deprivation of the rights of the voting adults which it is sought to impose under the major clauses of the Bill. Taken a a whole, the "Licensing Act Amendment Bill, 1910," is about as impotent and vascillaiing a measure us could possibly have-been launched , upon a. confiding public.