The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1889.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 287, 3 December 1889, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1889.

Por tho sauoe that Uoba nv—tence, Per the ■arrcng that neo_l resiet—ace, 7or tho fttfivo in the distance, £_- the good ta&t we can Co.

We are convinced that the protest

which the City Licensing Committees propose to enter against the sale of intoxicating liquor at railway stations on Sunday will be supported by a great majority of the citizens. For thirty. years Sunday closing has been the law in Auckland; it is now the law in every colony of the Australasian group, and legislatibri in Great Britain is rapidly tending towards the enforcement of similar restrictions. Under the Licensing Act of this colony the power of regulating the traffic has been vested in elective committees, and it is simply intolerable that three irresponsible persons at Wellington shall have the power not only to over-ride the deliberate opinion of Parliament expressed in statute with regard to the prohibition of '.he drink traffic upon Sunday, but also to neutralise the efforts of the representatives of the ratepayers in preserving sobriety and good order upon that day.

The conditions which are now being advertised by the Railway Commissioners for the lease of the refreshment rooms empower the lessee to open the bar "thirty minutes before the advertised time of each train arrival, and such rooms must be closed within fifteen minutes after the departure thereof." This gives three-quarters of an hour for every train, which practically means that tlieunrestricted saleofdrinkmaygoonat therailway station for a great part of every Sunday. The proposition is neither more nor less than a public scandal If, for the.sake ot raking a few paltry pounds more into the till of the Railway Department, a trade which is prohibited to hotelkeepers paying a high license fee is to be prosecuted by the Government, the sentiment of the community set at defiance, and the railway stations throughout the colony turned into common drinking bars, which will inevitably become the resort of the riffraff among the population, who are shut out of other licensed houses, the last end of our. scheme of Government railways will, indeed, be worse than the beginning. The sooner the lines are put up to auction and railway managers, like other members of the community, are compelled to conform to the common law of the country, the better for New Zealand.

The insertion of the clause in the Government Railway Commissioners Act, 1887, empowering Railway Commissioners to issue licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor was a total mistake. It is a principle now universally admitted that the traffic in drink requires rigid regulation. A law providing many safeguards against abuses has been placed upon the statute book of the colony, and whether it be deemed desirable to authorise the sale of drink at railway stations or not, licenses issued for that purpose ought to comply with the general law of the country, and be subject to equally rigid supervision. However, the power exists and cannot be got rid of without the intervention of Parliament. Refreshment rooms at a number of stations along the New Zealand lines are a necessity, and the onus rests upon the Commissioners to make by-laws for the regulation of these places. But we should be sorry to-think that the Commissioners are so devoid of common sense and so inaccessible to a reasonable remonstrance against what would manifestly be a gross abuse, as to persist in sanction-

ing Sunday liquor traffic at the city railway stations in defiance ol the strong wish of ninety-nine per cent, of the respectable inhabitants.