HOW TO CHECK DRUNKENNESS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 664, 22 April 1865, Page 2

HOW TO CHECK DRUNKENNESS.

At the recent Licensing Meeting, as will be seen by our report, the Justices refused nine applications for new licenses. What their reasons in so doing may have been we cannot of course say, the meeting being, as is usual we believe, conducted with closed doors. As, however, the applicants were mostly respeotable men, it may be imagined that the refusal in so many cases was grounded on a fundamental objection to an increase in the present number of public houses — with the object, we suppose, of checking the increase of drunkenness. Now though there would be a great diversity of opinion upon the question of how far stimulating drinks are beneficial, most people would agree that drunkenness is a great evil, by all means to be repressed in the most effective way possible. It may be doubted, however, whether by forcing men to go farther from their homes and to congregate in larger masses, the cause of temperance is at all advanced. No doubt the present holders of licenses will agree in the course adopted which makes their trade more of a monopoly-;- but they are not the only persons to be considered, and it is difficult to see how the public will gain either ia the accommodation provided for them, or in the quality of the goods supplied* or in any increased means for the promotion of sobriety. It seems to us that so long as the law makes it to the interest of the publican to let men get drunk there will be abundant drunkenness ; but supposing we were to reverse the order of things, and make it to their interest to keep men sober, what would be the effect ? It is quite right to punish drunkards * a good deal of money which would otherwise be wasted is thus turned to useful account by helping to increase the revenue ; but in all other offences the accomplice is punished with the principal — why not so in drunkenness ? In nine cases out of ten the drink, which makes a man drunk, or rather which completes bis drunkenness, say the last half of what he takes, is given with a clear perception of the effects it will produce, and the man who does this may fairly be called an accomplice in the drunkenness of tho other. Supposing then that whenever a man was found drunk all the publicans within a certain distance were held guilty of having made him drunk until they had proved that he had not been at their

house for a certain number of houra previously ; would they not be considerably more cautious than at present in the way in which they dispense their, liquors ? The suggestion is worth the consideration of the Provincial Council, and of all who care .for public sobriety or public decency, whether teetotallers or ordinary men.