LICENSING MATTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1918, Page 6

LICENSING MATTERS.

•'~ SOLDIERS AND-THE POLL, r ALLEGED DISABILITIES. By Telegraph.—Press Association.. < Wellington, Dec. 21. Mr. Batten, president of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, and Mr Armstrong, secretary of the Moderate League, called unofficially on the Minister of Defence to-day, slating that the gazetted regulations governing the procedure of taking soldiers' votes overseas for the special licensing poll did not enable soldiers to have the necessary knowledge of important provisions of the Licensing Act Amendment Act.

, Sir James Allen has not yet an nounccd his attitude.

PUBLICAN AND HEALTH | REGULATIONS. INFORMATION DISMISSED. By Telegraph.—Press Associativa. Wellington, Dec. 21. A local publican was prosecuted for selling liquor when the hotels were required to be closed during the epidemic. The defence took the line that the men served were boarders resident in the hotel and the authorities had no power to cancel that portion of the Licensing Act which allowed boarder* to be served. Beyond this it was ocntended that the selling of liquor had never .been legally prohibited, inasmuch as the Gazete notice required the approval ( of the Minister before, it became opera-1 tive, and there was no evidence of such approval. I

*ir I' ■.!<."• Ml.. upheld t'-- "■.:.'.. • tion, and suggested that the Health Department did not understand its own order- There was no statement that the approval of the Minister had been given in the advertisements published by the Deportment, and no proof it had ever been given. The information was dismissed.