The Daily News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1901. LICENSING ACT AMENDMENT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 218, 24 September 1901, Page 2

The Daily News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1901. LICENSING ACT AMENDMENT

Thk proposed amendment of the Licensing Act is sure to exeitsa considerable discussion. When the provisions of the proposed amondm nts are to hand we shall have something to say on the subject, in the meantime the following from the New Zealand Times will be read with interest:—After long expectation, a Bill is at last in sight for dealing with the licensing law. But though in sight, the outlines of the measure are only lightly indicated. It will, when it comes to the House, be found, the Premeirj explained, proposing certain amendments. These will deal with transfer of licenses ; with licenses r< quired for the tourists who complain of the lack of comforts on some of the lines of travel which are naturally the most attractive; with tied houses; and with the powers of endorsement of licenses possessed by Magistrates. Of these, the first and the last have been mentioned before. They have been, in fact, fully threshed out in the House in one way or another. The present practice of transferring licenses from one part of a district to another has been condemned generally, and by 1 none more emphatically than the Premier himself. It has, too, been generally recognised that the mandatory endorsement is too sweeping ki its effects, unfair and dangerous. Therefore, one is not surprised to se« these two provisions notified by the Premier . as being in the Bill. That the Act is capable of improvement in those directions is, of course, certain; but beyond 1 that it is difficult to say anything un- • til the Bill itself is before us. In the matter of tied houses it is impossible, from the information given, to form an opinion about the proposal. On the - whole, the degree of amendment proposed is not large. The Bill m'mply proposes to get minor points placed on > a better footing without touching the dangerous springs of discussion which lie at the root of the liceusingquestion. The socond point as named above is net the least important on the lis\ It has long been evid'mi that tho Hccoramodation for tourists in various parts . of the country is not what tho have a right lo expect. "Sly grog" noukes night hideous about them, interferes with their comfort in various ways, and . sometimes half poisons them with bad

liquor. Complaints under this head are numerous; most people are, in [ fact, familiar with them. Every tour- j ist who comes through these things goes back to his own country uttering bad advertisements for New Zealand. But it is in the highest degree advisable that he should give favourable reports, because the scenery of this' country is such as to make the tourist traffic grow rapidly. That traffic has been kept back by the fact that th i facilities of all kinds which are ex-

pected by travellers are not worthy of, the scenery, which is superlative. The ( establishment of a Tourist Department; * i has begun to remedy the defect, so far ! [as the travelling is concerned It remains still to do the same thing for the , accommodation. But until the liquor j question is placed on a basis both satis- i factory to.proprietors and tourists, the > hope of improvement must necessarily ' remain small. Were the licensed houses in Switzerland closed, and nothing substituted, the tourist revenue on which that much travelled country lives would be seriously diminished. Temperance people have, we understand, the special objection to all proposals in this direction that if carried they may some day be used to de-

feat a prohibition vot". For example, if Taranaki were to vote no license, it might be held that as Mount Egmont is a tourist resort, and as tourists must travel there by New Plymouth or by Hawera, or by Opunake, or by other places, it might be urged that it was necessary to grant licenses in all those!

places. Similarly, and taking a wider range, it might bo that, Auckland being on the route to Rotorua, also Napier, and also Wanganui, and without doubt Wellington, prohibition could be safely defied in these places for tourists' sake, in spite of its success

at the local option polls. Now, these are very ingenious suppositions, but they are never likely to get to a practical test of any kind. If, however, anybody makes a point of bsing otherwise afraid, it would be very easy to devise a clause which would make itnpoisibe such evasion as th se suppositions contemplate. The objection, b«ing one of the abuse of the

law, is met by the consideration that the law can be guarded against abuse. At the Hermitage and at the Hanmer Springs the difficulty is got over, as the Premier mentioned in introducing the Bill, Why not elsewhere ? There are places, too, where the granting of licenses has not been followed by the evils predicted. That fact ought to ba a good guide for future action.