Too Much Drinking Among Maoris Alleged

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 58, 9 March 1945, Page 4

Too Much Drinking Among Maoris Alleged

Magistrate’s Fierce Attack On Bar System (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, March 8. At the sitting of the Licensing Commission to-day, Mr. J. D. Willis, for the Crown, put a report to the Justice Depart m«mt by the Marsden, Kaipara and Bay of Islands Licensing Committees. The report said there was far too much (prinking among the Maoris in the i>roclaimed district in the Far North and that much social damage had resulted. The opinion was expressed that at their present stage the natives were much too vulnerable to the evils of over-indulgence in liquor. A century was a very short time for a race quite unused to intoxicating liquors to adapt itself to the social habits of the pakeha. It was recommended that Pacific Islanders in New Zealand should be placed under the same restrictions as the Maoris in each area, that barmen should be registered after an investigation of their character and should hold a certificate of fitness from a Magistrate. Mr. Gabriel Elliott, of the Waitomo Licensing Committee, said the e.o.d. transport of liquor system should be abolished, as it was a menace to the King Country. Mr. George Rodgers, of the Hauraki committee, said many hotels were catering too much for beer sales. Many had replaced “handles’ with very small glasses. Measures should be standardised in all New Zealand hotels. Attention to flouting of the Gaming Act was drawn by Mr. W. ltudman, of the Hauraki committee. It was wellknown, he said, that nearly every hotel had a bookmaker. He advised more severe penalties on the pakeha for supplying Maoris with liquor for consumption off the premises. Mr. J. L. Paterson, S.M., chairman of the Hamilton committee, also of the Rotorua, Raglan and Waikato committees, said that as far as their construction and accommodation were concerned the hotels in the Rotorua district were ( a disgrace to New Zealand. There was room in Rotorua alone for five additional modern hotels for tourists. Many abuses due to onerous conditions were imposed by owners on lessees and licensees. When he asked one lessee why he paid a heavy premium for the owner’s \ consent to a transfer he replied: “I am in the hotel business. If I did not pay I would never get another hotel.” Witness said that for the same reasons lessees had paid for structural alterations ordered by the health authorities. To prevent such extortions, he thought the committees should be empowered to examine the terms of leases and contracts of transfer, and to veto any conditions which might be deemed unduly onerous. No owner should be permitted to raise the rent without the consent of the committee. He gave an example of one hotel where the rent was raised from £7 10s by successive rises to £25 a week within 10 years. Some owners had instituted a system of not granting leases but weekly tenancies, thereby enabling them to make such increases in rent.

Battle Between Greed and Fanaticism “The present laws are the result of a battle between greed and fanaticism in which the interests of the ordinary sensible citizens have been ignored,” said the chairman of New Plymouth, Stratford and Egmout Licensing Committees, Mr. Woodward, S.M., in a report read to the Royal Commision on Licensing. “The outcome is a system under which citizens drink, cheek by jowl like pigs at a trough, what they are given instead of what they may want, and like pigs gulp down more than they need of it while they can get it, and for the privilege of doing so pay many times the cost of the hogwash they swallow. The gods must surely laugh at suck incredible folly, and men returning from overseas who have had their eyes opened will not be patient under a law that threatens to make guzzling a national habit and furtive drinking a fashionable pastime of youth in New Zealand. “Drinking under our law and because of it, instead of being a pleasant and respectable aid to social intercourse, has become the subject of idiotic mirth or censorious reproach. Reform to be of any value must be more than mere tinkering with the Licensing Acts. It will not come from another compromise between the brewers and" prohibitionists. It will come only from consulting the reasonable needs and wishes of ordinary sensible citizens and boldly fulfilling them notwithstanding the brewers and prohibitionists. “My view is that the best remedy would be State purchase of the whole industry now during the war when in default of other avenues for investment purchase money would have to go into Government securities, the interest on which would be provided many times over by the profits of the trade under Government control. “As &tatc purchase and control are at present out of the question I make the following suggestions on which 1 shall not elaborate because their purpose is obvious: 1 “That persons licensed to sell liquor be required to provide a place where customers can drink it seated , and in comfortable and sociable condi- , tions and the comparative privacy . afforded by the small table arrange- , meats usual in a restaurant or place where non-alcoholic beverages and eatables are also provided and ’where . women can aceonqiany their menfolk | without stigma or embarrassment. > “That liquor for consumption on the , premises be provided only in such a i place. : * 1 That a license to sell alcoholic • liquor be granted to any approved person who provides a suitable place i for drinking it. \ “That all premises where alcoholic liquor is licensed to be sold, if permitted to be open for the sale of such » liquor after 8 p.m., be closed for such * sale between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m. ‘ ‘ That the terms upon which a licensee takes over a hotel, whether in regard to rent payable by him or salary ’ payable to him, be subject to review ' to ensure him a fair living without 5 the need to engage in after-hour trad--1 ing; licensing committees, if reconetir tuted to include suitable personnel, ' could be the reviewing authorities. “That licensees be required to carry • stocks of light wines and cider at prices subject to fixation by the Price * Tribunal and based on the cost of production. r “That a close enquiry be made into L the cost of production and sale of beer ) and a fair price thereof fixed based on that #qbU ,j