Wholesale Licenses at the Clutha. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 12

Wholesale Licenses at the Clutha. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — No one living in or near the Clutha district can be blind to the gnashing of teeth or deaf to the howl of indignation caused by the recent action of the S . M . The • • volley "fired by the Salvationists was nothing to this. "We see those who surmount, by dint of some egotism or infatuation, obstacles from which the prudent recoil." This S.M. would pose as the embodiment of calm judicial administration, but his judgments show him to be a narrow heady man who, because he does not see many things, sees some one thing with heat and exaggeration. He is a veritable godsend to those who would carry a point without consideration of its fairness. The wish, the cry of the people, is nothing to a man of this make. "They are the fools who cry against me." Fools all of them who have no corresb notion of what is good for them. Fools who cannot prize " sweet and reasonable liberty for a nation and for the individual." — things that Mr Hawkins is jealous of with a great love. See how dear this sweet and reasonable liberty is to the soul of him. The country gives the people of this distriot the right to say by vote what liberty they want on this question of license. The people by a vast majority say, "No licenses," and this lover of liberty and "unimpeachable administrator of justice" says there shall be licenses; and there are. "I am a man of mature age, and ye are babes ; it is for me to say what skould be." "When lam old, rule me." "The furies are the bonds of men." The masses, the people, the democracy, away with them ; the vote of a S.M. is reckoned more than 1500 hands. Yet this man loves liberty, sweet and reasonable; if he cares for unimpeachable justice, he must remember that we have bought these things at a great price, and deem them of more worth than a herd of magistrates. The people whom he despises should see "that sweet and reasonable liberty" is given to him from judicial cares for the rest of his life. Does he not know that if you wound justice, it strikes you ; it rebounds P But does one who so eloquently speaks of justice really wound it P Undoubtedly he dees. He tells us that the act gives him discretionary power in relation to wholesale licenses— that is, the act leaves it to him to say in particular cases what justice is under the act. But what is to guide or control such discretionary powers P Surely the spirit of the act. Now, the spirit of the act is to have the wishes of the people on this question carried out. True, it is only too plain that this is hateful to the S.M. and the last thing he would be guided by, but nothing else is justice under the circumstances. Bias, is another thing hateful to him, but if he had not been blinded by bias and passion, he would not have come to the fatal judgment that discretion meant granting each license applied for. What a travesty of justice to suppose that the people are to vote away all retail licenses and the S.M. to vote instead wholesale licenses. If silence on his part were a crime, to have spoken about justice and liberty and then to act as he did were a tenfold greater. Whatever mature age has done for him, it has not fitted him for hjs position. He despises the electors, he impugns the ability of his co-adjutors, he leotures the legislators, and heaps contempt on the law. He has great respect if not fear for & mandamus; the people should teach him that the effective mandamus on questions of this nature is their will. Still he is a benefactor in disguise. The first lesson of history is the good out of evil. His evil will result in immense good. " 'Tis oppression that creates liberty." He has told the people to prize liberty and justice whilst he trampled on them. They will take him at his word and rescue them from all suoh men. I have not touched upon the correctness of his interpretation of the aot; we condemn him on any reading of- the aot.— l am, &0,, R. Dor>D3, Qfcaras, Jane 23.