THE LICENSING PROPOSALS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2669, 26 November 1909, Page 7

THE LICENSING PROPOSALS.

REY. EDWARD WALKER’S OPINION.

The Rev. Edward Walker, of Halcomb©, former Alliance agent and present honorary Parliamentary agent of the grand lodge of the Good Templars, when, asked what, he thought of the local option compact, said: “The more I think of it the more it astonishes and distresses me, as I think it will also the whole temperance party. In 1895, and again in 1896, Mr Seddon brought down Dominion (then called ‘national’) option proposals which, excepting the three-fifths provision, were altogether superior, and passed the Lower House on both occasions with practical unanimity, but were thrown out by the Upper House. Under them, when national no-license was carried it was to take" MIL effect- when-the; succeeding, year’s licenses expired within about 20 months and, though more than a dozen years of steady no-license progress lie between then and now, we are now,asked to accept worse terms. There was no suggestion from any source of any necessity of further delay in giving effect to the v poll on-account of revenue or anything beside. Those who' know how to deal with the cost of a Dreadnought are quite competent to so deal with the revenue as to bring about the change without either sudden or undue pressure. This is only a red herring to serve the trade with a longer run. If at this time of day the late Premier had privately conferred with & few on both sides, and brought down the present proposals, these same concessionists would have resisted them with a tempest of execration. Look -at the position. The steady progress of the no-license vote and the. simply marvellous enthusiasm, and unanimity of the recent great public, meetings in the four centres in favor of bare majority and Dominion option, which must have jnade the trade itself, as well as iw vermment and Parliament, recognise that an advance in temperance legislation is irresistible. Apart from the concurrence df the no-license party, anything retrograde at this juncture would bo impossible. The trade, by the compact, has yielded nothing but what it saw it stood to lose, and by binding "the no-license Samson hand and foot has '.saved itself from further loss it would have sustained, and substantially prolonged. .its ; existence. . If, the no-licerise leaders, when appealed to, had said: ‘No, the right of the electors is that the majority shalh decide, and .that' there shall be no heedless delay in giving their decision effect, whether at the local or the Dominion option. polls, and we stand by, that, and then had fought the matter out on the floor of Parliament, they could not have lost so much as they have surrendered, and by continuance of the agitation so splendidly begun at the four meetings, might have reached finality by the complete enactment or the public right. Anyway, it is not a question as between two parties, but a question of giving the electors as a whole, whatever their opinions, their democratic right. ’ ’