Wine Licenses.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 283, 5 June 1907, Page 2

Wine Licenses.

We congratulate the Wellington Licensing Committee upon their determination not to grant any licenses far the sale of New Zealand wine, or really for the establishment of private grog-shops for the special delectation of women, for that is what establishments of this kind generally degenerate to in the big centres. There is a good deal in what is said about the desirability of encouraging the sale of light wines in preference to the consumption of spirits, but we* are sure that such a method as the sale of wine by the single glass in the haphazard way allowed in these wine shops will not conduce to the well-being of the community amongst which they are licensed. If those who knew tfie inwardness of some of these establishments would only relate their experiences, the. public would be intensely surprised at what has been allowed to go on unchecked in their midst. If steps were taken to abolish the bottle-licenses which are granted in some parts of the colony, by which grocers are allowed to combine the sale of single bottles of liquor with the every-day necessities of the household, another advance in the direo-

tion of wise reform will have been made, and another temptation removed from the path of those who should not be subjected to the dangers placed in their way by an unwise legislature.