LICENSED HOTELS V. SLY GROG SHOPS ON THE NORTHERN WAIROA.

Auckland Star, Volume VII, Issue 1971, 3 June 1876, Page 2

LICENSED HOTELS V. SLY GROG SHOPS ON THE NORTHERN WAIROA.

(To tho Editor of the Evening Star). Sik,—A letter signed " One Who Knows " and a prominent paragraph on the above subject in Saturday's Evening Star appear to demand notice from me. It can be shown that during the last three years or so nineteen persons were drowned in the Northern Wairoa River through intoxication. Twelve or fourteen of these are proved by evidence to have obtained drink at the hotel carried on by Dr Campbell in his manager's name at Mangawhare. I question whether _ any sly grog shop could exceed that in the tinoe, and I feel sure that had Dr Campbell been in the habit of visiting Mangawhare occasionally he would have acceded to my proposal repeatedly made within the last two or threa years, and that we two, together with the mill owners and settlers could long since have almost entirely, if not altogether, checked the frightful amount of drunkenness that prevails in the district. It is Btated by the Stab that Dr Campbell thinks if the hotels are closed as such, sly grog selling will become a worse evil. Now I know the district thoroughly, and I am convinced that while it is of course possible there may be some little traffic of tbe kind, the sly grog sellers will be so closely watched that the evil consequences will be of an exceedingly mild nature as compared with the foregoing. We have now sufficient police agency on the river, and, besides, the four principal employers of labour there have agreed to offer a large reward for a conviction. I can further statethat; Tirarau, the mo3t influential native chief in the district, and Abraham Taonui, another, have both determined not to permit it amongst the natives. As the Stab has allowed my private affairs to be raked up in the anonymous attack made upon me in its columns, I am reluctantly compelled to reply. The writer states that the hotel, if the license be refused will not pay as a boarding, house. Assuming that to be'; correct, what else can it be used for ? Can it be turned into a sawmill or flaxmill ? True, it would make a splendid hospital, but that will not be required if the hotels are plosed. By tbe writer's own showing therefore, the property will be greatly deteriorated in value if the license be refused, As for tha hardship I am represented as inflicting upon the widow and children by closing the hotel, it is fair to state that Mr Raynes himself, the licensee, is the youngest child by some ten or twelve years, and that I have agreed in the event of the license beiag refused, to cancel his lease, and offered to let the house to his family at less than half the rent as a boarding-houss. Ha will also be compensated for his contribution towards the erection of the Public Hall. When he took the hotel his capital was £80. He is now worth £1,000, and has paid me nearly £400 for rent during the eighteen months he has been in it. Let me again state that lam

reluctantly compelled-to go into .:>tW-?nnfc-ters. /For myself Iy^fl not pret^ndj tMm sharflefin every respect a great loser by the closing of these hotels. I employ on an average one hundred men in my business. These men will work better when beyond the reach of liquor. The prosperity of the chstricfc generally, in which I am largely intere* ted, will be advanced, and settlement will be promoted when our noble river shall be no longer notorious as the drunkard s "rave, but shall become known only as Nature b mapihcent highway through one of the finest districts in the colony.—Yours &c, J. M. DAEGAVILLTi!.