DIVIDED OPINIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1920, Page 3

DIVIDED OPINIONS.

ECHO OF LICENSING COMMITTEE ELECTION. THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Stratford, March l'l. According to a telegram received by a local storekeeper from the secretary of the Labor Department, it appears that there was no necessity for the closing of the business premises in Stratford on Tuesday afternoon, on the occasion of the licensing committee election.

After seeing the announcement in Tuesday morning's Daily News that the shops would have to close that afternoon, the storekeeper sent an urgent wire to the Minister of Labor asking for official instructions in regard to closing, but through delays in transit the roply of the Department did not reach him until Wednesday morning. In it the secretary of Labor stated that it was not necessary to close shops ant! other business premises, except notels, on the afternoon of the licensing committee election. The telegram was, however, not banded in to the telegraph office at Wellington until Tuesday afternoon, and in the meantime, the local police, as representatives of the Labor Department, had ordered all the business people to close their premises. . The storekeeper, in conversation with a Daily News representative, exnressed his indianation at the action of the police in forcing the half-holiday upon the public, when there was no necessity for taking such a course, and suggested that in order to avoid similar misunderstandings in the future, the services of the borough solicitor should be obtained in matters affecting the welfare of the public. When the matter was referred to tho borough solicitor (Mr T. C. Fookes) he stated that section 30 of the Licensing Act provided that all shoos and hotels must close from noon on the day of tho licensing poll, and section 4(5 of the- Act extended the provisions of section 30 to the day of the licensing committee election. This made it quite clear that there was no option but to observe the half-holiday last Tuesday. Regarding the Labor Department's telegram, he could not understand the grounds on which the Department had taken up its attitude. Possibly it might he a case of the provisions of the Act dealing with the matter being regarded as a dead letter. In Hawera, where an election had also been held, the shops had closed''