WAR REGULATIONS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 81, 2 October 1918, Page 4

WAR REGULATIONS

/. '! ;, \ :.■:;■ TO,TUB KDIIOR. . ♦ •'• ' Sir, —Is it preferable to submit to the inconveniences of freedom- rather than to suffer the burdens of parochial tyrannYYou: recently published War Regulations about milk supply;" which, while general in" application, are doubtless : merely intended-to operate in. the. City of Wellington. They are alleged to he in excess of the powers conferred on the Grovernor-in-CouncU under statute, inasmuch as they assume to confer on borough councils the power to impose under license, such further terms and conditions as the borough council thinks proper.' This however, is a matter for the Crown Law Officers to deal with. The layman cannot determine. For the present we must accept the position that the borough council may impose terms and' conditions by/license both on seller and buyer, which may indirectly confiscate the, business and property of the former and cause inconvenience and loss to the latter, and there is to be no redress or compensation. What the penalty may be for disobedience is undefined. I must consult my lawyer if I .wish to know. Anyhow, the regulations aay I may buy milk in a milk shop and drink it on the premises. Penalty, if I carry it away,'undefiiii6d'. If I want milk in my housa I can only, get it from a municipal agSht, delivered at such-time as it may please the council- to 8x under the War Regulation.

-Jerome X Jerome's eleeper, who wakes in a museum after a century's slumber, and feeling, dustj, wants to have »'Waßa,.ifi told by the cuitodiw^

that he will be.washed- by the State officer in due : course.; at ...the proper time and place-, in .State water, with - State soap, and be 'dried' with" a State towel, all things being done by the State in the "common interest for economy and efficiency. . , .. ' ■Our conditions will be a shade or two worse apparently. We ..are not worth the direct attention of the State, but are to be passed pn to the tender mercies of the unknown terms an 3 condition imposed by a borough' council committee, an odd lawyer or two and some municipal gasbags.: We .find further that : when the regulations come into bperafTo^ here, all other boroughs within- ■ a radius of 30 miles around become restricted in trade operations thereby, requiring the special approval of the' Minister for Agriculture to allow individuals to start in certain lines of business. It" requires a great stretch of imagination to make one believe that the war conditions prevailing in New Zealand require such regulations or that they are justifiable.—l.am, etc., ■ > V. -.. CITIZEN. 25th September. ; ,