The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

'?_ I % "( C C * & ) 4 ' A % fi DAY, MARCH 24, 1915. |CENTRAL COMMISSION ' 'l' REGULATE LIQU New Proposal of Provincial Government--Shorter H, ' in Shops -- No Sale to Soldiers in Uniform ; --Mr. Rowell Dissatisfied | e diew e es ts e eceneiy it on tiee ces | ! & CHANGES IN LIOENSE LAaw. 'A Central Commission of five men will administer the license law, in-- I stcad of the Provincial Secretary, i aided by riding Commissions. | Liquor shops will close at 7 o'clock each night instead of 11 o'clock in cities and 10 o'clock in towns. The sale of liquor on Labor Day is prohibited,. as on Good Friday and (?lnTistmas Day. | The sale of liquor to soldiers in uni-- i form is prohibited. ' The answer of the Hearst Govern-- ment to the demands for advanced| temperance legislation was given in! the Legislature last night, when Hon. | W. J. Hanna introduced the long-ex-} pected bill to amend the liquor license act, which was found to provide for a Province--wide, non--political Com-- mission to deal with the administra-' tion of the liquor trade. The measurei was eagerly anticipated by membex'sl | on both sides of the House, follow--| 'ing- the Premier's declaration to the! temperance deputation some weeks | lago that the Government's proposals | would be found well abreast of public | sentiment. It carried out also, ac-l cording to Mr. Hanna, the promise of' iSir James Whitney, who "said he| would, and in power attempted so to | ldo. remove as far as possible ,the' |nquor traffic from the field of poli-- | tics." [ 'While it has been my duty ; as well as my privilege to intro-- duce on several occasions bills to l amend the liquor license act .__ Guring the past ten years," said I ~CMr. Hanna, "at. no time hbas i , I been my duty or my privilege to t introduce a bill more far--reaching in its result, more far--reaching ; in advancing the adiministration | of the liquor license law, more far--reaching in minimizing the [ evils of the liquor traffic. While | we say the bill which we intro-- duce to--night will do all this, it will do this in small compass, so [ far as space on the statute books ¢ | of this Province is concerned." < Mr. Rowell's Criticism.,. ' ' Mr. Rowell frankly confessed his |disappointment with the bill. If he| | understood the Provincial Secretary j | right, the proposal of the Government | * involved a radical change in license[ administration, but no radical change in the hours of sale or in the number + of places that might sell. With the exception of making Labor Day one | of the prohibited days and closing the i shops at 7 o'clock in the evenring, that was the sum of the restrictive pro-- posals. Public Will be Disappointed. '"What I wish to say is this," continued . the Liberal leader, '"'that in view of the cireum-- stances under which this House is met and of the conditions and demands of the country, no more disappointing bill was ever in-- troduced to the Legislative As-- sembly. J think the great ma-- jority of the right--thinking peo-- ple of the Province will be dis-- appointed at the bill." The proposal represented the maxi-- mum of change with the minimum of benefit so far as curtailing the evils of the liquor traffic was concerned.!| He felit sure that the bill would be particularly disappointing to the| friends of the Prime Minister in a