PRESBYTERIANS AND LICENSING REFORM

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21961, 9 December 1936, Page 18

PRESBYTERIANS AND LICENSING REFORM

TO IBM EUITOB OF THI PRESS. Sir, —Your footnote to my last letter Is illuminating. We are now to understand that your appeal for reform of our licensing laws touches only one point, viz., “a redistribution of licenses so as to reduce the number in areas like the West Coast and to increase the number available for tourist hotels and for areas which are relatively underlicensed.” This, I take it, is your complete answer to my request that you should define what you meant by licensing reform and what was involved in your programme for “rational distribution of licenses and rational drinking hours.” Your sole contribution to the programme for licensing reform is, then, a redistribution of licenses. Forgive me if I labour the point, but it seems to me that you have spilt a great deal of ink to cover eo small a matter. As to the attitude of the Presbyterian Church, let me deal first with our reaction to your proposal. We are quite agreed that it would be all to the good “to reduce the number of licenses in areas like the West Coast. ’ There is no doubt whatever of our Church’s mind on that point. Where there are too many licenses in an area, the obvious thing is to reduce the number. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with you in that reform. But we cannot agree that the case has been proven for an increase in the number of “licenses available for tourist hotels and for areas which are relatively underlicensed.” That proposal must stand or fall on its own merits; it has nothing whatever to do with a redundance of licenses in certain areas. There are a great number of factors which enter into this problem which are not involved in the other. 1 am quite willing to debate this point as it is required; in the meantime, and for the purpose of this letter, I merely record the fact. Other questions of licensing reform which we would gladly assist, I have already indicated. We would have the law amended, if need be, to clean up the “dilapidated drinking shops” which you complain, to do away with the present iniquitous system of “tied” houses, and to eliminate the present possibility whereby many licensed houses, especially at isolated points, become mere “road houses” of the American type. We could make a good beginning on these, if you were willing to join in the fray. May I point out. in conclusion, that this discussion originated in your claim that the Presbyterian Assembly was opposed to all licensing, reform; but the only reform to which you have committed yourself is the reduction of licensed houses in certain districts, and the doubtful expedient of increasing licensing facilities in other centres.— Yours, etc.. LAWRENCE M. ROGERS. December 3, 1936. [Mr Rogers’s letter shows that the Presbyterian Church’s programme of “licensing reform” is mainly a programme for making it more | difficult to buy liquor in New Zealand. He says the proposal to reduce the number of licenses in areas like the West Coast “must stand or fall by its own merits.” On the assumption that the goal of licensing reform is prohibition, this may be so. On the assumption that licenses should be distributed in accordance with the needs of the populatio’n. it is not so. Mr Rogers favours an amendment of the law to deal with certain abuses and asks us to “join in the fray.” We have been in the fray for many years; whether we make common cause with Mr Rogers and the • Presbyterian Church depends on the changes in the Ipw they want. Redistribution of licenses is not “a small matter.” It is the most important point in any programme of licensing reform —as we understand the term. Readers of “The Press” will be well enough aware, if Mr Rogers is not, that irrational distribution of licenses is by no means the only licensing abuse we have attacked. We have no space here to recapitulate all we have said on the subject, though we shall be happy to supply Mr Rogers with references. We will conclude the argument from our side by saying that we do not believe that licensing reform and prohibition are compatible ideals.— Ed., “The Press.”]

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PRESS. Sir. —In a criticism in your issue of to-day of my previous letter on this question. “Early Closing” opens fire by a declaration that I am “totally unfitted” to take part in such a discussion. He is quite entitled to believe that or any other thing he chooses, though the opinion is rendered quite worthless by the prejudice with which he approaches the matter. Perusing this vein of personal oflensiveness, he calls me a “mere guesser.” I do not care to deal in these trivialities. I leave the issue to your readers and the public. Only those whose intemperate zeal for temperance—which is a euphemism for rigid prohibition and teetotalism—warps their vision and distorts their judgment could possibly misunderstand the argument in your leading article. It was that the licensing law should be amended and reformed to bring it into line with the wishes and convictions of the majority of the people, who are neither drunken sots nor intemperate teetotallers. You indicated what some of those reforms might be—such as the redistribution of licenses, which by removing licenses from districts ♦that are overlicensed. and transferring them to districts that are under-licensed, would bring about a reform which real temperance and common sense would approve: that tourists resorts for the sake of tounsfs who will not willingly go to “dry” areas, should be granted licenses; that (I think you meant thisl it was indefensible that decayed towns and townships which still hold the licenses granted _ when their importance and population were 10 times greater than to-day should lose some of their licenses, which could then be transferred to such places as Ashburton, Geraldine, or Invercargill, which lost their licenses by a fluke or accident: and are now, in spite of the people’s wishes, being held in the clutch of an arbitrary prohibition, with the full approval of those prohibitionists. You called some of the licensed houses mere dilapidated drinking shops, and urged a recasting of the law which would end these unjust anomalies and effect a thorough reform. But the prohibitionists scorn these suggestions, and will not support them. They are out not for reform but for extinction. My critic agrees that the present law *is broken and despised every day in every city, but if there is such a wholesale contempt for the law it is proof of that law’s unworthiness. Why not bring the law into line with the people’s wishes.—Yours, etc., JOHN STRAIGHT. December 2, 1936. [Subject to the right, of reply of A. A, Armstrong, this correspondence is cow closed.—Ed.. “The Press.”!

LABOUR AND THE UNEMPLOYED TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —Your correspondent, A. Ryan, not content with misrepresenting the Hon. Robert Semple, now attempts the same thing with me. I did not state that the unemployed were “on a good wicket.” I said they were “on a better wicket than ever before.” I was not contending that their lot is all that it should be, but an improvement has been made. I am not fighting the unemployed; I am all the other way, and will do ail that lies in my power to assist a genuine working man. I have been doing that all my life. However, I have no time’for one who wants the best standard of living without working for it. I believe also that heaving muck at the Government and abusing the farmers is absolutely the wrong method to adopt in attempting to redress grievances. As far as farm labour is concerned, only men with a knowledge of the work required in the harvest field are required; others would be in the way, worse than useless. I was trained on farms for 15 years, so know something about it. Recognition of the right of every man to be provided with work or sustenance is comparatively recent. We owe the recognition of this right to the Labour stalwarts of the past who have braved the scorn of their fellow-workers, through ignorance, and the brutality of those in power. The intellectuals, the thinkers, the humble enthusiasts throughout the various nationalities have given of their best and suffered untold hardships in their efforts to create a new era for the toiling masses. Russia put the wind up the rulers of other countries; hence the arrival of unemployment insurance, and the dole, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, not for the sake of the recipients but to save their own positions. The workers of the world have not yet begun to wake up. When they do, they will be able to give real Christian principles a trial. The workers in New Zealand are beginning to take a tumble, but they have a long way to go. A large number voted for Labour for one reason only, and that was because they had become dissatisfied with the other side. It is up to the workers in this country to try to understand what the party stands for, so that they will be all heading in the one direction, all doing their little bit.—Yours, etc., HIRAM HUNTER. December 8, 1936. [Subject to the right of reply of A. Ryan this correspondence is now closed.—Ed„ “The Press.”]