Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1881. THE LICENSING QUESTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 87, 1 July 1881, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1881. THE LICENSING QUESTION.

It is satisfactory to find that Parliament has settled down earnestly to the consideration of the Licensing Bill. The necessity of the licensing laws being consolidated and generally improved is admitted on all hands, and though in the Bill as originally introduced and as amended in the Lower House there are various features of doubtful utility, we believe that when finally passed it will be a substantial impro\ement upon existing legislation. The licensing question is a very wide one. Experience has proved that the liquor traffic is one which, in the interests of the public, must be regulated by law, and while there are many honorable men engaged in business as hotelkeepers, there are many others who need watching carefully, and who, were they not hedged round by the law, would be a curse to the community amongst whom they dwell. Laws are made for evildoers, and the liquor traffic is a business which presents singular facilities for dishonest men to exercise their evil propensities. Hence, we say, the necessity of the traffic being placed in such way that it is carried on under the constant supervision of the police, who are required to make periodical reports as to the manner in which each hotel is conducted. There is, however, a possibility of this feeling being carried too far, and we think it m carried to an extreme by Sir William Fox and a number of the party of which is the head in this colony. Starting with the assumption that liquor is the " root of all evil," they denounce moderate drinkers as incipient drunkards, hotel-keepers as monsters who prey on the bodies and souls of their fellow-men, and as the outcome of these extravagant ideas desire (to use one of their favorite expressions) to " tear up the accursed traffic root and branch," in other words, to abolish it. Such ideas as those mentioned are very forcible as portions of the platform harangues of extreme teetotallw*, who aim at pro-

hibition, but when analysed they dhow a great deal of feeling with a slight admixture of judgment, a vast itnount of enthusiasm but a very limited view of the question. Sir Win. Fox and his coadjutors, although able to quote statistics by the column, show but little practical knowledge of the liquor traffic question. Chey see only oue phase of it, and regard it ouly from their own parti e.nlar standpoint. The number of ah tamers, apart from women aiidchildIren, is comparatively small, while bo the vast majority of the people strong drink is (rightly or wrongly) so far a necessity that thej' will have it. [f they cannot get it legally they vill get it illegally. Holding these views, we cannot agree with the local >ption principle, which we hold wil ■if carried to the extent Sir Win. Fox wishes) seriously interfere with She liberty of the subject. What right have twenty householders in Foxton to say to teu others, " We lo not want strong drink, and we will oherofore do away with tho means by which you can obtain it?" The thing is monstrous. Yet the local option muciple, as proposed, means that [f the necessary majority of the people say, " We will not have any more public houses," the Licensing Bench may not giant any additional licenses, [f, on the other hand, the people say, "We do want more public houses." the Licensing Commissioners are not hound to grant them. The proposal to apply the local option principle to the country generally is a thing with which we cannot in any sense agree. For ex-ample, the hotels in Foxton partake more of the character of accommodation houses than drinking places for resideuts,and the same remark applies to almost every hotel on the Coast. Apart from the profits derived from tho liquor traffic, it is doubtful if any single hotel between Wellington and Wanganui would be remunerative to its proprietor. On the whole they are orderly and well conducted, and supply accommodation much superior to that of boarding houses. To prove this, it has only to he stated tha though two private boarding-houses exist in Foxton, Sir William Fox never stays at them when visiting this town, but invariably " puts up " :it Whyte's Hotel, a fact which fully sustains our argument. Now, suppose Sir William Fox made a raid on Foxton, made a number of converts to Ins cause, and the necessary majority to close all the publichonses were obtained, — who would be the losers ? The travelling public, undoubtedly, and w*e believe Sir Win. Fox would be the first to cry out. We say it would be unjust to place in the hands of the residents of small towns like those in Mauawatu the power of deciding whether the travel ling public should or should not enjoy the conveniences found at first-class hotels as compared with average country lodging-houses, because the men who would vote for the suppression of hotels are persons who never use them, and who cannot ap preciate the statement that in the present state of society they supply a social necessity, in that they are a common meeting place for all classes of men, as well as comfortable houses for travellers. A still further objection we have to the local option principle is that if applied only to new licenses it would tend to promote monopolies of the liquor traffic. It is morally certaiu that hotelkeepers would combine with the Good Templar party to shut out new applicants for licenses. The former would do so on the principle that the fewer there are in a business the greater the profits ; the latter on the principle that the less temptation a man is subjected to the less probability there is of his becoming a druiiktu'cl. Consequently the two parties would uuite their forces against the common enemy, and the result would be that if the required majority were obtained against it, no matter how necessary au additional licensed house might be in a town or district, it could not be granted by the Commissioners. Taking a general view of the qnestion, those are our views on local option. We think that if carried out it would promote slygrog selling. It would be an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject. It would tend to the inconvenience of the travelling public by shutting up the only houses that supply good accommodation, and if adopted only as regards new houses it would tend to promote monopolies, which are at all times undesirable On a future occasion we propose to deal with other phases of the liquor traffic question.