STRONG COMMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 234, 2 October 1940, Page 11

STRONG COMMENT

STUDENTS OFFENCE.

"DISGRACEFUL CONDITIONS."

WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

The opinion that the police should at once investigate the administration of the licensing laws in the Stratford district was expressed in the Supreme Court to-day by Mr. Justice Ostler, when admitting James Ronald Hugh Morrieeon, aged 18, a student, to two years' probation for failing to stop after an accident.

His Honor was commenting on the fact that Morrieson had been able to obtain two ddzen bottles of beer from a brewery on credit, and said the facts connected with the case disclosed a disgraceful state of affairs. In addressing Morrieeon, he ■ said: Here are you, a boy of only 18 years of age. You are not earning a penny, and are apparently living on the charity of yom mother, and yet you seem to be able to own a motor car. I don't know whether you actually own it, but you have the use of it, and in these days of a shortage of petrol* you seem to have petrol to go to dances. That is not so bad, but here are you, a boy of 18, able to go to a brewery, buy tVo dozen bottles of beer, and not even pay for it. They take this order and book it to a boy like you. It seems to me that there is something wrong with the administration of the licensing law in your part of the world, and it seems to me to be the duty of the police to find out how a boy is able to obtain two d>zen bottles of beer on credit. I think the police ought at once to take a hand in an investigation of that. That, however, is beside the point. Having supplied yourself with this beer and picked up a earful of young bloods of your own age, you go to a dance, drinking on the way. What right have you to do that ? What does your mother think ? You go to a dance, then drive off without lights. You feel a bump, and have i-ot the moral courage to stop to see whether you have hit something. You dont deserve much leniency at all. You are a university student, hoping to get a degree, and you ought to be one of the young fellows sett ing example in the country, instead of Behaving like that. Solely on the ground of your youth, I pro]>ose to accept the recommendation of the probation officer and grant you probation." The conditions laid down by his Honor include an order not to attend dances, not to be out after 8 p.m., and to pay costs £4 8/11. Morrieson's driver's license was also cancelled, and he will be deprived from holding another for two years.—(Prese Assn.)