THE PROHIBITION MOVEMENT,

Waikato Argus, Volume VII, Issue 517, 23 November 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PROHIBITION MOVEMENT,

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —What has become of the Prohibition party in Waikato ? At last election it was much in evidence and by organised effort did much to make the no-license vote as large as it was. If the same tactics had been pursued on the present occasion it is highly probable that Waikato would have followed the example of Clutha and cast aside the shackles of the trade. The party certainly began well; it hold public and open-air meetings, at which the evils attendant upon the traffic were clearly pourtrayed, with the result that moderate people were becoming impressed with the idea that the trade must be vetoed. A meeting was also convened to select a candidate to run in the Prohibition interest, and after the selection had been made the chairman remarked that if he (the chairman) ever became a member of the House he would prove a "second 'Tommy' Taylor" in his antagonism to the trade. Mr Taylor, as everybody knows, is a thoroughgoing Prohibitionist, and even his most bitter opponents admire and honour him for the zeal and earnestness with which he advocates the cause. Events have turned out that the chairman referred to is at present seeking the suffrages of the electors He has carefully relegated his Prohibition principles to the background, with the result that the good previously accomplished has been undone and Prohibitionists are accused of being insincere in their convictions, the action of their erstwhile leader being quoted as an example, There is reason in this, for his advocacy of the bare majority has been converted into championship of the three-fifths, despite the fact that he previously characterised the advocacy of the three-fifths majority as "downright flunkeyism." He is in favour of facilities being given for the granting of licenses in the King Country, although before his candidature he was never tired of painting in vivid colours the horrors of the trade, but now he is favourable to its extension to " no-license " districts. By his action he has apparently paralysed the Prohibition party, and I shall be surprised if the poll does not show that the cause has lost ground in this electorate during the last three years. If for the sake of a few votes a candidate is prepared to lay aside his publicly-stated convictions and adopt- others to order it clearly proves that he is not a safe man to place in such an honourable position as representative of his fellows in the council chamber of the colony, and it is to be hoped that all who have the welfare of their country at heart will pause before they register their vote in favour of a man who by his own words stands convicted of" flunkeyism." The country wants men of integrity and backbone at the head of its affairs; not flunkeys and time-servers,—l am, etc., Disgusted.