LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13524, 22 February 1906, Page 8

LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

TO THE EDITOB. Sm,—The No-license party at, its conference seems to liavc k'on in a bit of a quandary as how test to act against the License <ir "trade" party. It appears first of all to have regretted keeping hotelkeepers to the 6trict letter of the Licensing Act, the infeience being that if hotclkcepers, gene "liy speaking, had had their own way, or partly as in years gone past, tho moderate section of the community would agaii with the Prohibition party, have voted reduction, and for the third time enabled a prohibition bench to dock off the maximum number of licenses allowed by law. The No-licanso party need not trouble about tlie moderates wanting an extension of time from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, as the former hour his come to stay, even if itdrives a. certain class into oilier, avenues, where the sly-grog seller is said' to make a good Jiving. The Licensing Committee presumes far too much in what, it has done in regulating the hotel trade. It forgets that the clause in the Licensing Act relating to persons found illegally on the premises has had a salutary effect with a certain cantankerous claw that was acouslomed to argue with the landlord the. correctness of lib timekeeper, ako that the police are more vigilant now than formerly, and that, after ail. the laity of Dunedin is not such an inebriated eity as the extremists would try to paint if. When the no-license brigade refers to its control of tile wholesale' licenses, it is difficult for me to understand what it means. I suppose that 20 cases of a uerta-in whisky are the same article in one wholesale merchant's store as in another's. If the brigade had referred to bulk whisky being slightly watered after diiiv has been paid on a given quantity wid strength there might hare been something to crow! about: but not from a teetotaller. The watering <2*K. J»'l» those 'Jf the watering <o[ mjlkr

belong to the past. If I mistako not, a. Chinese merchant holds a wholesale license, or at least did, for the purpose of supplying his countrymen up-country with their favourite liquor. Conditional licenses are often abused, and, perhaps, in • most instances it is better to bo without thorn, executing at racecourses, where, when the weather is cold and the grass, is damp, as at present, a moderate quantity of stimulant" would materially help to keep tk, coppers warm within,—l am, etc., February 20. Manuka.