THE PROHIBITIONISTS AND THE MAGISTRATE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9300, 30 December 1895, Page 6

THE PROHIBITIONISTS AND THE MAGISTRATE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. SiX. —The members of the prohibitionist depuiatioD which waited upon the Minister of Justice are not iD the least surprised at tho tone of your leader on the subject. They did not expect to find a fair statement of the ground on which they based their request to Mr Beeves, and, therefore, they were not disappointed. You say that "because Mr Hawkins ventured to speak of the Licensing Act as he. found it—because he dared to say that prohibition had been tried in the (Jlutha district and found wanting—the prohibitionists asked the Government to remove him from the district." The effort of imagination by which you discovered that the " deputation seemed a little ashamed of their position" may bo passed for what it is worth, but the reasons you assign for the deputation's request are absolutely incorrect. The ground taken by the deputation was that the whole value of prohibitory laws turns upon the measure of their enforcement. That the Government has repeatedly declared its intention to have them euforced in the Clutha; that Mr Hawkins as Stipendiary Magistrate is in this respect the administrative representative of the Government ; that the position of the police is already sufficiently difficult) with a ring of so-called " respectables " in the Clutha, who set themselves to promote law-breaking; that those difficulties are increased tenfold when the Magistrate continually expresses the reluctance with which he enforces the law ; and that the Government, if sincere in its expressed determination to secure enforcement, should place a Magistrate there who will not play into the hands of illicit liquor sellers and their supporters. It ought to be plain to the simplest understanding that the only logical outcome of Mr Hawkins's attitude would be free trade in liquor, without any attempt at regulation. He says, in effect, because prohibitory laws are broken, lac the Government enquire whether the law should not be ab»nd«sJitfd. ' : The'depuCation incidentally mentioned to Mr Beeves that 175 persons entered the back door of one Chrisichurcli hotel last Sunday night in two hours and a quarter. They could have given him scores. of such facts, but every newspaper man, at least, knows that licensing laws are laughed at and their restraint defied. Yet the editors who condemn prohibitionists when they ask for the removal of a Magistrate who practically recommends the abrogition of a prohibitory law that is in part defied would raise a huge clamour if other Magistrates said—Remove all restrictions, because regulation fails. It may be added .that the Clutha Presbytery has publicly reminded Mr Hawkins that the district is not really under prohibition at all, because, when a Committee that was pledged to grant no license whatever had been returned by the overwhelming vote of the people, he himself grauted wholesale licenses in defiance alike 01 the people's vote and the Committee's decision.— ■ Yours, &c. : , Secretary Christchcrch Pkohibition ■jLkAGUE. [We cwA h'nd nothing in the published report of, >ir Hawkins's remarks about " the reluctance with which he euforces the law," and hope , this is not "an effort of the imagination *'' ou our correspondent's part. The deputation admitted that\ the Magistrate does enorce the. law with strict impartiality, and whils he does this, we thiuk ie would be a most dangerous '•ud improper precedent for the Government to tamper with the independence of the Bench as they were asked to do by the Raw F. \Y. Isitt and his colleagues.—Ed. Pekss J