sation is granted to any licensed house thus
closed. Two local option polls have been held under this law. The
first resulted in the closing of some seventy houses and the carrying
of a total prohibition of retail liquor sales in the district of
Clutha. Limited Prohibition has been the law in Clutha for some four
years. The accounts of the results thereof conflict very sharply. In
the writer's opinion--given with no great confidence--the consumption
of beer and wine there has been greatly reduced, that of spirits not
very greatly. There is much less open drunkenness. In certain spots
there is sly grog-selling with its concomitants of expense, stealthy
drinking, and perjury. The second general Licensing Poll was held in
December, 1896. Then for the first time it was taken on the same day
as the Parliamentary elections. In consequence the Prohibitionist
vote nearly doubled. But the Moderate vote more than trebled, and the
attacking abstainers were repulsed all along the line, though they, on
their side, defeated an attempt to recapture Clutha.

[Footnote 1: In 1884 the consumption of liquor among New Zealanders
per head was--beer, 8.769 gallons; wine, 0.272 gallons; spirits, 0.999
gallons. The proportions had fallen in 1895 to 7.421 gallons of beer,
0.135 of wine, and 0.629 of spirits.]

The Prohibitionists are now disposed, it is believed, to make the
fullest use in future of their right to vote for the reduction of the
number of licensed houses. They still, however, object to the presence
of the Reduction clause in the Act, and unite with the publicans in
the wish to restrict the alternatives at the Local Option polls to
two--total Prohibition and the maintenance of all existing licensed
houses. They have also decided to oppose having the Licensing Poll on
General Election day. Strongest of all is their objection to the three
to two majority required to carry total and immediate Prohibition.
These form the line of cleavage between them and a great many who
share their detestation of the abuses of the liquor traffic.

[Illustration]

Chapter XXII

EIGHT YEARS OF EXPERIMENT

"For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a potter thumping his wet clay."

In 1890 a new force came into the political field--organized labour.
The growth of the cities and of factories in them, the decline of the
alluvial and more easily worked gold-fields, and the occupation of the
more fertile and accessible lands, all gra