TE AROHA ELECTORATE AND MR W. S. ALLEN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2830, 2 September 1890, Page 2

TE AROHA ELECTORATE AND MR W. S. ALLEN.

TO THU KIIITOR. Sin, — I observe in your issue of the 23rd August a letter signed Henry Buttle, in which Mr Buttle says Mr Allen's opinions on the temperance question have been in some quarters rather sharply und perhaps unfairly criticised. Mr Buttle then quotes from a letter he has just received from Mr Allen purporting to repeat the views expressed by Mr .Allen at the Alliance Meeting in March last —he says at Te Aroha— but I suppose this is an error, as Mr Allen is reported by tho New Zealand Herald of the 12th March last to have attended the New Zealand Alliance Anniversary Breakfast at Auckland on the lltli March last, at which he proposed a resolution, and made a speech in support of the same, when he gavo expression to muc'.i stronger views on the temperance question than those promulgated through Mr Buttle. For tho sake, therefore, of the Te Aroha electorate, and if necessary to remove any misconcoption which may bo caused by Air letter, I would ask you to reprint the Now Zealand Herald's report of Mr Allen's speech at the New Zealand Alliance Anniversary breakfast in March last. — Y ours, Sc., Ja.mks Hai.lv. Cambridge, Ist September, IS!D. TIIK I'OITI.UI YKTO AND COMI'KNsATION. Mr W. Shepherd Allen (Waikato) moved. "That the House of Representatives, having, by resolution, decided imperatively that a Bill should be brought in by the Government, without delay, to give the people in each licensing district the popular veto at the ballot box, it remains only to secure that the exercise of such veto should not be made contingent on the payment of compen-jatiou to the proprietors or licensees of houses closed by such veto. And this meeting is of opinion that tho Alliance should use every effort to persuade Members of the House, or candidates for seats, that any compensation so paid would be equally opposed to justice, expediency, and the practice for centuries of all countries in which licensing laws have existed, with the solitary exception of the colony of \ ictoria, where it has proved unsatisfactory." He said that ho was pleased to find that in New Zealand, as they ought to be in a young and rising and growing and vigorous country, they were more forward at the present time on tho licensing question than in England. In England the whole licens ing power was vested in tho magistrates ; in New Zealand the licensing power was entrusted to boards especially elected for the purpose, anil undoubtedly this was a very great improvement upon tho English sysiem. Ho was glad that lhey wero determined to go a stop further in the right direction, and insist upon the popular veto, or the right of the people t" judge for themselves. (Hear, hear.) The other questionthat of compensation- -was a groat bugbear to many good people. But the Alliance only wished to do justice in this matter; and if they culd prove that it was just to compensate the publican, he for one would bo the first to vote for it. He believed, however, that they could nut prove this. The State s ild tho licenses for a single year, and at the end of that year the State had a right to take it back again. (Cheers.) The restrictions placed upon the liquor trallic showed that the State that it was an evil. He wished the New Zealand Alliance every success. He was glad to see the large number of ladies thero that night; ho knew the power of the influence of ladies in public lifo. Jvow Zealand was a lovely country—a country on which Providence seemed to have showered d.iwn •very good gift that a bountiful God could confer upon His creatures; they had a delightful climate, grand scenery, inetals and minerals, coal, and iron, fertile soil, and, he believed, a larger percentacre amongst their colonists of really industrious hardworking, frugal, and upright man than, perhaps, in any other colony in the tJueenV dominion. (Cheers.) They had their future in their own hands, and if they avoided the mistakes of the old country, they would trv by iust laws to prevent and do away with the crimes and miseries caused by the drink traffic. It would be a grand and glorious day for these islands when the people adopted the principle of tho United Kingdom Alliance, and persuaded their representatives to do what was right on this question. (Cheers.)