THE LICENSING ELECTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2214, 8 February 1886, Page 2

THE LICENSING ELECTION.

(To the Editor.) Sib. —I think anyone reading the letter of "Temperance" which appeared in your columns 011 Saturday must have been struck with the shallowness of the arguments used by the writer. He claims that he is, if anything, a Liberal, yet he must admit, that he desires to keep one of the trades in the place in the hands of four persons, though, only for such time as will enable hiui to turn round and conviently choke these friends. _ Well might he wince under the Lash, that iB contained in the turn "unholy alliance"— first given the full light of day by himself, be it understood. It is all very well to say that teetotallers want to get people away from hotels. If they do, why do they themselves go and stay at them when they are travelling ? Why, for tho simple reason that hotels are, more comfortable than lodging houses. Everyone, no doubt, desires to see his own brother away from hotels, but he. .worships liis own belly god too much to set an example. It would be idle to say "that teetotallers seldom stay at hotels when they can set other places, for anyone who watches the arrival of the " busses" from the Railway Station will see that they do patronize hotels very freely—at any rate, as freely as they do the two houses "Temperance" alludes to, What does *' Temperance mean by saying that unholy alliance is on one side only ? I always thought it required two or more parties to make an alliance. Surely he meant to say that it was temporary on the one side. If so, he should have been candid enough to add that he was ashamed of it. The present publicans will, no doubt, feel flattered by the threat to cut their painter as soon as the temperance party has gained its own ends. And now a word or two about more licenses causing more drinking. 1 have taken a look at , the three houses in the centre of the town and have found this: —The Empire Hotel has two most abstemious neighbors, possibly" teetotallers. The Club is surrounded by absolute teetotallers; while the Prince of Wales has an abstainer on one side. I venture to think that these premises are more valuable on account of being next to a public house ; yet they clearly do not drink more because they live so near them, as " Temperance" asserts. I should like to know if "Temperance has a further store of arguments that may be as easily bowled over. I am, &c., Tollerance.