SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING !

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 817, 25 February 1916, Page 8

SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING !

Why and Wherefore ? EECAUSE a certain number of Australian soldiers defy their officers, break out of camp and precincas, get drunk, destroy property, insult and. assault civilians, and raise Cain generally, that surely is no reason why the public of Wellington should be subjected to compulsory closure of all club and hotel bars at 6 p.m. What need is there anyhow for this six

o'clock closing of the hotels in Wellington? The exact causes of the Sydneyriots wo need not here discuss, but we might hazard the suggestion that the deplorable weakness of the Labour Government in New South Wales in not backing up the officers in charge of the camps' and in tacitly encouraging members of Parliament to take up and exploit every little trumpery grievance of the men has been a factor of no small importance in the development of a 'rebellious spirit at the camps. We strongly protest, however, against any assumption that the men at Trentham are ever likely to indulge in the disgraceful rioting of which we havo heard so much the last few days. The New Zealand soldier is singularly and most laudably amenable to discipline, and under no circumstances, no matter what the provocation, is he likely to be guilty of what, at the Liverpool camp, was equivalent to open mutiny.

Neither does he seriously abuse the use of strong liquor. On the other hand it is one of the first remarks made by visitors from Australia that there is so little drunkenness in Wellington, a busy sea-port town, and that they are specially struck with the orderly and sober behaviour of the soldiers on leave trout the training camps. . To close the hotels at six o'clock on the plea that visiting soldiers drink too much would not only be absurd, but would be a gross insult to a very fine lot of young fellows. Furthermore, any such ■indiscriminate early closing of hotels would not only be a grave nconvenience to the travelling public who, we need scarcely remind the business men who are amongst our readers, soend a lot of money m the city, but would be most unfair to those hotelkeepers—a large majority of the trade—who conduct their houses properly and in strict accordance with, not only the letter, but the spirit, of the law. There may be, we believe there are, a few of the smaller hotels m the city where not only soldiers but ships' firemen and other classes of customers are served 7v \ l W T Whell £t shoul d »e patent to the hotelkeepers and their servants that they have already had more drink than is good for them. But the police and the Licensing Committee should be able to bring these offenders—they are only a (comparative handful—to book, and it would be surely unjust to punish the black sttp. ,OT the oftemeS rf « fe- * * # # Since the foregoing was written wehave been waited upon by a leading promoter of the new movement, who asStlf + ? 8 connected with the Prohibition Party, and that asa matter of fact no avowed Prohibitionist is associated with it. They are moderate people who are not in any wav hostile to ''the Trade." They "do not wish to shut up the hotels at 6 p.m but only to prevent the sale of liquor to' soldiers after that hour while the war continues. Their motive is merely to assure a high standard of discipline* and to maintain the reputation our soldiers have already won by their good behaviour. In the spirit of fairness, wemention these assurances, but at the same time the question is still apt and pertinent: What have our soldiers done to deserve a kind of special exclusion from privileges which are possessed bv the rest of the eommunitv? In other words, if soldiers may not have a 11 j at el bars after 6 P- m -< wll Y & a 4. an yoody else have that privileged Are they less trustworthy than ordinarv civilians ?