“Archaic” Licensing Laws

Southland Times, Issue 22914, 12 June 1936, Page 6

“Archaic” Licensing Laws

It is encouraging to find that the movement for the reform of New Zealand’s licensing laws is steadily gaining pace and weight. A few days ago we reported the presentation in Parliament of a petition from the owners of the tourist hostel at the Fox Glacier asking for an amendment of the law so that they might be licensed to sell spirituous liquors. We said then what we have said many times before: that licensing laws which were framed half a century ago are in the light of public requirements to-day intolerably stupid and unreasonable, and that their revision is already long overdue. According to a Press Association message printed yesterday this view is shared by the Auckland Licensing Committee, for which Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., made the following statement: The committee has asked me to say that it considers the time is long Overdue for a comprehensive re-enactment of the licensing laws. They are in many respects archaic, having come into being in the ’seventies and early ’eighties when public requirements were quite different. It is to be remembered that no Government likes dealing with licensing legislation any more than it likes dealing with a Bible-in-Schools bill or a bill for the legalization of bookmakers. Revision of the laws —involving what is needed most urgently of all, a complete redistribution of licences throughout the Dominion —will only be accomplished by the pressure of public opinion; and it is essential, therefore, that the people should give heed to authoritative criticisms like this and make their voice plainly heard.