THE LICENSING BILL.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 89, 12 October 1904, Page 5

THE LICENSING BILL.

APPEARANCE IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. DEBATE ON SECOND READING. HOSTILITY TO THE CLUB CLAUSES So many rumours have been afloat regarding the treatment which the Licensing Bill would receive at the hands of the Legislative Council that a large number of members of the House of Representatives were present in the galleries of the Council yesterday when the second reading of the Bill, moved by the At-torney-General, was under discussion. Prior to the second reading being called on, the Hon. T. K. Macdonald piesented a petition signed by 118 Wellington members tf the Warehousemen's and Travellers' Association, who stated that the club clauses of the Bill ware regarded by 20,000 club members in New Zealand as absolutely unfair and inequitable. The club connected with the association had about 500 members, and had been conducted on strict anl proper lines, no gambling being tolerated, non-mem-bers not being given access to the club premises on Sundays, and no liquor being permitted to be obtained for consumption off • the premises. On the strength of its club charter the association had recently erected- a new clubhouse at a cost of £18,000, and the proposals in the Bill, if carried, would diminish its value by several thousands of pounds. The principle of the club clauses was stated to be a " grave departure from all the recognised rules of civilised communities." The petitioners referred to certain benefit funds of the association which enabled them to do a good deal of charitable and relief work, and they claimed that the proposals in the Bill would largely diminish the receipts and thus prevent the continuance of this work. They concluded by asking that " these blots " on the measure be removed. For many year's past no question had agitated the public mind so much as the liquor question, the Attorney-General began, and he gave a brief historical sketch of the development of the question from the point of public interest. Owing to the activity of th.9 interests of the nolicense party and the trade, Ihe interests of the great bulk of the people had been largely overlooked. The present Bill differed very materiilly from the shape in which it had been introduced. Ie had been passed by a very large majority in the House, and it must have been a matter for surprise that such a Bill had been passed, because if either of th 6 contending parties had chosen to go in for obstruction, the passage would have been emphatically blocked. It was. a Bill in the interests of the public at large, and contained many provisions of the greatest value. He urged on members to adopt a policy of accommodation and subordination of individual desires and prejudices and to place on the Statute Book a Bill that would put an end to the eternal wrangling over the question. After sketching the purport of the various sections of the Bill the AJ(torneyGeneral referred to the "club clauses" (which propose to place clubs in much the same position as hotels), and pointed out that they were not very different from those of earlier Bills that had been introduced into Parliament. He, therefore, thought the Council should hesitate before altering these provisions. "Hear, hears !" greeted his reference to the clause which provides for the extinction of the bar at "Bellamy's" in the event of the City of Wellington declaring for no-li-cense. In conclusion, he urged members to consider their responsibility, and to do nothing to impair the passage of what he was convinced was a reasonable solution of the liquor difficulty. "A badly drawn up Bill," an "absolutely unintelligible measure," were the terms in which the Hon. F. Arkwright, in opening a speech in which he urged that it was impossible to understand the Bill without having all the Statute Books at one's elbow, referred to the measure. He thought that it would be a wise course to move that the Bill be read that day three months. He did not intend to do that, however. It was one of the worst Bills he had ever seen. The Minister had attempted to settle a question of the greatest importance by a measure of shreds and patches He ought to have repealed the existing Statutes and started afresh. That the Bill was a difficult one to understand, was also agreed to by the Hon. T. Kelly, who urged that the various Acts should be consolidated into an intelligible measure. The Hon. J. Rigg opened with a simile. The passage of the Bill in the House reminded him of the general who went into battle fully armed and escaped in his shirt. The measure was a. compromise between 1 the two extreme parties. The interests of the great middle party had not been consulted at all. The moderate party wished to stop the great monopoly of liquor. They wanted better liquor and more of it for the money. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Three very important provisions hi the original Bill had been thrown oat — viz., the clauses referring to "no license, no liquor," «State control, and tied houses. Two of these had been sacrificed in the interest of the no-license party. There were two or three sections in the Bill, however, which would make the measure a useful one. These were the proposals *svith respect to the King Country and the Cook Islands. Regarding tied houses he considered it clear that as long as a brewer had power to cancel leases &o long would there be tied houses. He considered that the action of the Lower House showed the extent of its moral falling-off since the passing, some years ago, of legislation relating to tied houses. He intended to move in Cdmmittee a new proposal in the shape of a clause to make it unlawful for a Licensing Committee to grant a license to any premises owned by a brewer, with a proviso giving brewers ample timo to get rid of their property. This would obviate anything like confiscation. He hoped the Council would agree to the clause dealing with the transfer of licenses, and the withholding of consent by a landlord. He knew of a case in which a publican was robbed of £1500 by a clause in the covenant of lease. Regarding the club clauses, which opened up a wide question, the point was not merely the hours of closing of clubs, but concerned the question whether clubs Mere different from licensed premises. If they were different, there was no reason why clubs should not be permitted to exist in no-license areas. He would solve the liquor question by placing the trade in the hands of the municipal authorities for the public benefit. He did not agree with the principle of "no license, no liquor," and he did not agree with those who urged that there should be no clubs in no-license districts. He did not expect that Prohibition would result in so many benefits as the Prohibition Party imagined. If Prohibition were carried throughout the colony the last state would probably be worse than the first. The Hon. J. Twomey complained of the manner in which the Prohibitionist Party was misleading the moderate drinker by making him suppose that he<could always get drink in spite of Prohibition. When the whole colony was under no-license the moderate drinker would be unable to

get anything to drink unless he imported it. The Bill as originally introduced had given the people very wide powers in the direction of voting on every issue involved, but many of these had been struck out. The people who had for years been cheering for Prohibition had been the first to scream denunciations at the Premier for proposing to place several issues before the people. In the Bill there had been an honest attempt to put down sly-grog selling, and it had been denounced by the Prohibitionists, who were the promoters of sly-grog selling. ,He had seen the Prohibitionists in all guises, as Good Templars and Hon. G. Jones : But never as drunkards. Mr. Twomey: I have been with them myself, but I have cut the painter now. (Laughter.) Continuing, he quoted from what he said was a letter from a member of an American police and detective bureau, in which a lurid picture was painted of the crimes and extraordinary lack of moral tone in the Prohibitionist States of America. He himself was in favour of State control, and. he went on to state his scheme for rendering bars unattractive to the youth of the colony. It had ben a pity that the people had not been given the right to say what "no-license" should mean. He would move to reinstate the rejected clauses in Committee. While he admitted the difficulty of framing a satisfactory Licensing Bill, the Hon. C. Louisson declared the Bill to be a series of concessions to the Prohibition Party. The proviso to clause 4 (allowing liquor to be sold medicinally in nolicense districts) would simply mean a reproduction in this colony of what obtained in the Prohibition States of America, where the chemists .carried on the liquor trade. The passage of this clause would do more than anything else to bring people back to their senses, and banish prohibition from the country. It was a most vicious clause, and he would move to strike it out when the Bill, was in Committee. He also objected to the proposal that, in the event of a second poll, that second poll should not be valid unless 55' per cent of the valid votes recorded at the voided poll were cast. His ground for opposition was that it could conceivably allow a very small minority to decide an issue. After commending some non-contentious provisions in the Bill he challenged the Hon. J. Rigg's allegations regarding a landlord demanding money for his consent to an assignment of a lease. If there were any suspicion of 'such an abuse, the clause in the Bill was necessary, but in thirty years' experience he had never heard of a case in which a brewer had received a single sixpence for his consent to an assignment. The provision of the third sub-section of clause 52 (providing that a landlord shall not arbitrarily or unreasonably refuse his consent to an executed assignment or sub-lease) was one that did not exist in connection with any other property than hotel property, and it was an injustice to the owner or landlord, who should have the right to see that he had satisfactory tenants. The Prohibitionists, with their usual subtlety and cleverness, were trying to throw the onus of the club clauses on "the trade." This was unfair, inasmuch as "the trade" supported these clauses only as far as the abolition of club's in no-license districts was concerned, and in that respect most of the clubs agreed with them. At this stage (5 p.m.) the Council adjourned, and on resuming in the evening Mr. Louisson stated that he regarded the drastic club clauses as another of the concessions that the Government had been making to the Prohibitionists during the past ten years, and he quoted similar clauses that^had been introduced by the Government in past Bills to show that it had always been the policy of the Government to bring clubs under the licensing Acts. He hoped that the Council would modify these clauses as far as possible. The clubs with which he had acquaintance — both in Christchurch and Wellington — were very well conducted. He' had never seen drunkenness, disorder, dissipation, or gambling in them ; and the Working Men's Clubs were productive of much good. He would like to see the reinsertion of the clauses eliminating the reduction issue, but he would not move in that direction. In the present state of the colony reduction was an absurd issue to place before the electors. Circumstances had altered in the last ten years, the population having increased, whilo the number of hotels had decreased. Further, very large sums had been expended in replacing old hotels. The only effect of reduction was to increase the value of the remaining hotels and to build up a large monopoly — one of the largest in New Zealand. The proposal to close up Bellamy's when no-license is carried in Wellington, he regarded in the light of a joke. Dealing with the question of tied houses, he contended that the Council had three .times decided, after great consideration, that tied houses were not the evil that had been alleged. The Hon. F. Trask warmly supported the Bill, and expressed the nope that it would not be torn to pieces in Committee. He would like to see the clauses regarding the Cook Islands amended so as to give the natives permission to brew orange beer. He was opposed to the club clauses, which were the only ones that required amendment, and he favoured 11 o'clock as the closing hour for clubs and hotels. He would move in that direction in Committee. Hon. T. Thompson: You will lose the Bill. Hon. F. Trask : I don't think so. He continued to express disapproval of State control. Speaking as one who was not in sympathy with all the aims -of the Prohibition party, the Hon. G. Jones denied Mr. Louisson's contention that the Bill was a series of concessions to the Prohibitionists. On the contrary, the greatest concession in the Bill was a concession to the brewers, in the matter of tied houses. With respect to Mr. Louis--son's statement that "the Trade" had never asked that clubs should be treated^ the same as hotels, the programme of the Licensed Victuallers' Association had distinctly claimed that clubs should be brought under the control of the Licensing Act. Taking the Bill as a whole, nobody would be any better or any the worse for its passage, except perhaps the licensed victuallers. It was a pettifogging Bill — a patchwork. It was not a reform Bill, and the Trade was welcome to the honour of having produced such a measure. The real reason for the legislaion in the interests of the liquor traffic was the last progress of prohibition in the South. Sir. Jones went on to deal with the statements that prohibition led to perjury and litigation, and quoted from a remark by Judge Kettle regarding the development of perjury into a fine art in Auckland, which was not a prohibitionist district. The only remedy for the drink evil was abolition. This colony, however, was on the right track. The Bill gave the traffic so much scope that it \\ ould xn time disgust the people. The' restrictions regarding the bona fide traveller, etc., would only cause vexation and expense to the public. The speaker then quoted from the report of a London Times conespondent'a investigations into the Gothenburg system in Scandinavia, to show that the Gothenburg system was the reverse of a reform, and that Gothenburg was more drunken than England. . The Hon. S. T. George referred to Mr. Jones's speech as the most intemperate lecture on temperance that he had ever listened to. The Hon. G. Jones intimated that he took the remark as a compliment. The Hon. S. T. George continued that the Bill was composed of necessary alterations and samples, of what had been termed' hysterical legislation. Regard-

ing the "reduction" vote, he considered' that that vote was the vote of the great moderate party, and could not be considered) as a second, vote given to the no-license party. He approved of the extension of discretionary power to Magistrates as regards the endorsement of licenses, and was in favour of licensing benches being composed of Stipendiary Magistrates. The proposal to have a second poll would lead' to efforts being made to void polls. What, he asked, was the reason for the interference with the clubs — which had for centuries been an historical part of our social system? He had never heard of any great drunkenness, debauchery.or gambling in these establishments, and they were not run for the profit of the members. The interference was not for any democratic reason. At 9.30 the Hon. W. Beehan moved the adjournment of the debate, and this was carried by 15 votes to 8. The Council then adjourned till tomorrow evening.