LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 222, 6 September 1929, Page 6

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

PUBLIC TRUSTEE AS A BREWER. SIR ROBERT STOUT’S MOTION DEFEATED. Wellington, Sept. 5. In the Legislative Council this after noon the Rt. Hon Sir Robert Stout moved: “That in the opinion of the Council considering the waste of food and means and the physical and moral injury to the people caused by the consumption of alcoholic liquor steps should be taken by the Government to discourage such consumption and to pass such a law as will prevent the Public Trustee being a brewer or vendor of such liquors.” The mover argued that the deleterious effects of alcohol on the human system could not be denied, and that if the League of Nations had seen fit to prohibit the use of liquor amongst natives in West Africa, there was equal necessity for steps to be taken to save the lives of people generally from the same evil. The motion was not intended as a punishment for the Public Trustee, but to do him a service. He probably only consented to be a brewer because he thought it his duty to do something for the estates for which he was trustee. It was absurd that while the Education and Health Departments were circulating literature advocating temperance and pointing out the evils of drink, the Public Trust Department was publishing advertisements telling people to drink beer and stout because it was health-giving. The Leader of the Council (the Hon T. K. Sidey) said that none of tho liquor interests controlled by the Public Trustee belonged to the State or the Public Trust Office; they belonged solely to individuals for whom the Public Trustee was acting in the same capacity as any other trustee. He was bound to do his best in the interests of the beneficiaries for whom he was acting. That was within the scope of the law which in New Zealand permitted both brewing and vending of alcoholic liquors. Sir Robert Stout’s object would not be attained by pie venting the Public Trustee from neting in that capacity in relation (u such estates. The only thing that would he achieved if the motion were given effect to w’ould be that all persons having controlling interests in liquor would not appoint the Public Trustee to administer their estates. It would only be a means of debarring people from getting the benefit of the Public Trust Office, and that would be unreasonable. f The Hon. IV. Earnshaw also opposed the motion, which was defeated by 23 to 6.