LIQUOR AND THE LAW
MR JUDKINS’S VIEWS
Mr WH Judkins, in an address at the Wesley Church
Pleasant Sunday
Afternoon gathering, yesterday dealt with the attitude of Parliament
towards the liquor
trade.
Mr Judkins said that in New Zealand, as
elsewhere, the vote of
respectable men and women was not equal to the vote of drunkards and
dissolute men and
women, owing to the provision of the iniquitous three-fifths
majority demand by
Parliament. That was why New Zealand and New South Wales had not closed
more hotels.
If the liquor traffic had any pluck it would say to parliament,
“Let us win by
simply majorities.” But it was afraid. Some day change must
come.
The people had the power in their hands now, but they resembled a
sleeping giant. It would
have been better for Victoria if the 1906 bill had never been passed;
better if they
had had to wait 20 years for a proper measure. It might be said
that hotels had been
closed in Victoria. They would only be satisfied, however, with
the entire abolition
of hotels. An effort had been made to laud the Licenses Reduction
Board at the
expense of local option. Whether the former was considered a better
machine than the
latter depended on whether people believed that the liquor traffic
could be restricted and
regulated, or whether they were of opinion that it should be stamped
out of
existence. His objection to the Licenses Reduction Board was that
it recognised the
drink trade as a desirable thing, up to a certain point.
The following resolution, moved by Mr Judkins, and
seconded by Mr A Moody was
unanimously passed: -
“That this meeting affirms the necessity of amending the
Licensing Act so as to
provide for the question of the continuance of the liquor trade being
decided by a simple
instead of a three-fifths majority rule, the latter being undemocratic
and unjust. It also
affirms its belief that the liquor question can only be settled
satisfactorily by a direct
vote of the people, and protests against any constituted body being
given the right of
decision, which ought to belong to the people alone.”
From THE ARGUS 3rd July 1911 page 6
