The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1900. SUNDAY TRADING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 92, 24 April 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1900. SUNDAY TRADING.

It is always disappointing when a case in Court is decided not on its merits or demerits but in accordance with a recognised ruling on a clause in an Act. It fcaa been said again and again that the licensing laws, as embodied in the legislative enactments regulating the liquor trade, were, if properly carried out, quite strong enough and sufficiently comprehensive to prevent drunkenness and to ensure that Sunday, at least, would be free from the evil effects of insobriety. This, however, is not the case, and it seems as if nothing short of an amending Act, carefully framed, can meet such cagea as that recently heard by Mr. Stanford and the one on which counsel for the defence successfully relied. As the law stands at present there is apparently no limit to tho number of so-called guests which a lodger in a hotel may invite to partake of drink ; nor is there any limit to the quantity that may be consumed. No doubt the licensee of a house will take care that he is jpaid for the liquor supplied, but the njatter of payment does not enter into we question at all, so far as the general public are concerned, nor does it affect the question of a breach of the Act. The main point is that the act of a lodger is like that of a king—he can do no wrong. In the case in question the lodger " shouted for the crowd," and the police contended, though unsuccessfully, that there was no evidence to show that the itrnjoriry of the men found on the premis&s in any way fulfilled tho culinary acceptance of the tern " gue«fs." They were not even in tho sauio room with their host, and had i.o connection with him bayond dunking at his expense. It would se.rui as if i,ht>. intention of the Legislature to p'tfavent Sunday trading had created a new des-; cription of "hosts" and "guests," whose mission it is to circumvent the Act; and now that the door for indiscriminate treating on Sundays is wide open, there are likely to bo many visitors. What is to pi bvent any hotelkeeper who wishes to do a Sunday trade from arranging for a convenient and constant supply of boarders to assist and protect him in the operation ?/ Surely such a system was nover for a moment thought possible when the Licensing Act was passed, and the sooner remedial legislation sets this matter straight the better for the com-1 munity.