The No-License Movement.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 1279, 28 November 1903, Page 4

The No-License Movement.

A compilation of the number of persons who went to the poll, and the number who voted for No-license, in 1896, 1899, and 1902 respectively, and a calculation of the percentages who voted for Nolicense, has betin prepared by the Rev. Edward Walker, with results of considerable public interest. The information appeal's in another column. The numbers are taken from the RegistrarGeneral's returns, and include the figures for e£ch electorate, and the totals for each province and for th« whole colony. As an example we give the figures for the Wanganui electorate—ln 1896, 4026 recorded valid votes, of Avhom 1748 voted for No-license, or 41.55 per cent.; in 1899, 5207 persons voted, and 2162 of them voted for No-license, or 41.52 per cent.; and in 1902, 4745 persons voted, of whom 2267 voted for Nolicense, j>r 47-77 per cent., 60 per cent, being the necessary number to carry that issue, or three-fifths of the total number of persons recording valid votes. A still greater • steadily increasing Nolicense vote seems to have prevailed generally throughout the colony, during the last three triennial periods since t.-« enactment of "The Alcoholic Liquor Sale Control Act Amendment Act, 1895.' We may illustrate this by the percentages for the several provinces and for the colony as a. whole. In 1896, 1899, and 1902 respectively, the percentages who votied for No-license were, in the province of Auckland^ 39.13, 41.32, and 44.41; Hawke's Bay, 41.83, 47.44, and 49.52; Taranaki, 48.37, 43.42, and 45.88; Wellington, 38.33, 40.28, and 48.39; Nelson, Marlborough, and Westland together, 29.73, 32.00, and 36.46; Canterbury, 37.15, 43.21, and 51.90; Otago, 36.95, 46.48, and 5*.72; whokcolony, 37.82, 42.23, and 48.88. From thisFis will be seen that if No-license could have been carried by a simple majority and each province had been a single licensing district, the whole, of Canterbury and Otago Avould, at the last poll, to use an Americanism, have gone dry. In other words, the licensed liquor traffic to-day, in Canterbury and Otago, exists by the will of the minority. And at the rate of progress in the other provinces this bids fair, at the next poll, to be the position throughout the colony. Perhaps nothing, is at the presenti time more surely contributing to this anticipated result than the irritation of the public-mind by the unwise attempts of the trade to avail hemselves of mere technicalities to defeat the will of the people in Bruce and Newtown, and thus keep the whole question in agitation thrughout the colony by the litigation this suicidal ' policy has involved. The electorates in Avhieh upwards of threej-fifths of the voters polled for No4icense last year were .Newtown, Ashburton, Chalmers, Bruce, Clutha, and Mataura, six in all. Invercargill polled for No-license 59.82 per cent., Awarua 59.46, Selwyn 58.55, and Kaiapoi 58.91. Besides tihese, which came so clos^ to carrying No-license, there was over 50 per cent, "for No-license in Eden, Marsden, Franklyn, Thames, Napier, Waiapu, Hutt, Pahiatua, Avon, Lyttelton, Courtenay, Geraldine, Timaru, Waitaki, Caversham, Oamaru, Waikouaiti, Taieri, Tuapeka, and Wallace, or 24 in all, or 30, including the six which carried No-license. The t.rend of j public opinion on the questin is thus unmistakable, and must lieicessarily be j reckoned with on the part of the Legislature and the Government. There is no sign of any check to this steady trend, but) just now much to the contrary, and thend can be no doubt that any attempt to check its progress by the Government or the Legislature, will be much the reverse of a service either to themselves or the trade. The moral plane among all civilised peoples is steadily rising, and social evils which have been taken as a matter of course in past times will be increasingly less tolerated in the future. The trade generally is not! likely to reform itself in view of the increasing disfavour of the people, so that the continued growth of that disfavour is a moral certainty to which legislative effect must necessarily be given. For this, perhaps, the- brewers are chiefly to blame. The exorbitant rents many of them exact for ■ their houses and the severe conditions they impose make it often impossible for their tenants to pay their way except by unlawfully and disastrously pushing the sale of drink, and the shortness of their leases gives to the tenants no interest in caring what may be the result of the next local option polls compared, with making all the money they can during the unexpired brief interval remaining to them of thfsr leases. In the absence of any reasonable prospect of improvement it will not be surprising if the fiat of the people goes forth to end what no warning seems sufficient to mend.