THE LIQUOR QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2370, 10 December 1908, Page 6

THE LIQUOR QUESTION.

ENGLISH LICENSING HILL

Mr Albert Bruntnell, secretary of the New South Wales (No-License) Alliance, who has been in New Zealand for the past three months'in connection with the local option campaign, left for Sydney by the Moeraki last week. Mr. Bruntnell is aiot. new to No-license campaigning (says the ‘•Dominion”), and that he is an able lighter for the cause be holds dearest obtrudes in his every feature. He has the brow of a poet and the jaw of a" boxer, both of which are balanced on the figure of a Life Guardsman. That he is a force in the movement is evidenced by the fact thi.it he was sent for by tlie United Kingdom Alliance to assist in its anti-liquor campaign, and was at Home when tlio Licensing Bill was read a second time. When he left England it was generally anticipated that the Lords would throw the Bill out—that, says Mr Bruntnell, was no surprise to anyone, least- of all to those who knew how and where liquor interests lie. That is nothing—it is the beginning, and though it is admitted that England is dreadfully conservative, temperance reformers think that the thin end of the wedge lias been firmly inserted. Interest has been quickened in quarters where there has never been a flicker before, and the hundreds of meetings that havo been held liavo been crowded as never before. As the Bill was drafted on lines approved by the Church of England Temperance Society, the Anglican Church in general was with it, but, of course, There were exceptions. Wliat he regarded as greater still has been the manner in which it has punted the forces and wrought all sorts of divisions into a concrete fighting body that must be heard of In the future. Mr Bruntnell mentioned that t he Labor members of Parliament had been a great assistance to the party in- favor of the Licensing 'Bill. The extreme Socialists of tlio. Grayson type were against it, but the more moderate of the class so labelled were with them almost to a man—“fine men who ‘went solid’ for the Bill.” In this respect he mentioned the names of Mr Henderson (leader of the Parliamentary Labor party) and Mr Iveir Hardie, whom he found to be the sanest of men. There was no mistake that the battle for the Bill, though lost, had created a force that would not stop -until some tangible reform had been achieved. He did not wish to be pessimistic, but if that reform did not conic England was doomed as a first-class Power.

Respecting the No-license question at Home in the immediate future, it was his opinion that the Bill would be presented again at the next session by Mr Asquith, probably with those clauses regarding the acquirement by tlie State of the license monopoly knocked out, as the Government already had power to acquire that monopoly. The proposition in the Bill was that all licenses whether held bv brewers or private individuals should lapse in twenty-one years, and thereafter the issue of licenses would be ,’eft to the discretion of the State. New Zeaf.and’s recent triumph had given them all great heart, and its moral effect on New South Wales would he an invaluable aid to the efforts of the alliance.

“It is not what I might sav on the platform that would do so much good, but when I am able to tell them whatNew Zealand is doing after years of experiment, and they know it to be true, it makes them think, and that’s all we ask them to do.”

The movement was doing wifi in New (South Wales, and it was going to do better. At the last poll Reduction was carried in 65 out of 90 electorates (reduction and No-license votes are added together as far as the reduction issue is concerned), jand as tlie result 300 licenses and 56 wine licenses were cancelled by the Reduction Court.