The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1886.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3586, 29 March 1886, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1886.

The elaborate judgment, which was delivered last week by Mr Justice Richmond on a claim for a mandamus to compel a licensing committee "to hear and determine " an application for the permanent transfer of a certain publican's license, should have an excellent effect m enlarging the knowledge of licensing committees throughout the colony as to the true scope and meaning of some important provisions of tlie law under which those bodies exercise their functions. The lesson may be of special service to the Good Templar members of the committees ; for there can be no doubt whatever that the peculiar pledge under which that section of the committees assumes office binds it to do all m its power to make the Licensirjg Act a lever for damaging, and it may be destroying, a traffic which the legislature intended should be merely supervised and controlled m a reasonable manner. We have not the slightest desire to overstate the case, and we have the fullest sympathy with the temperance organisations m their legitimate efforts to put a stop to excessive drinking as the fruitful of misery, waste, and crime. But it cannot be too strongly pressed on the attention of those who undertake the heavy and philanthropic labour of combatting an acknowledged evil, that what they do should be done under the law, and that the latter should m no case be wrested to serve a purpose which m itself may be excellent. Now we assert that we do not overstate the case as againßt the Good Templar members of licensing committees that they start with the conviction that all places m which intoxicating liquor is sold are a rank abomination and a crying nuisance which it is tbe duty of every honest citizen to suppress. Tbe pledge which every member of the order takes on his admission furnishes unanswerable proof of the truth of what we say. It is not our business to find for Good Templar members of licensing committees a method by which they can conscientiously observe their special obligation to the order, and at the same time administer the Licensing Act according to its spirit as well as its letter. As far as we can understand the question, reconciliation is impossible; for if a Good Templar committcemau votes for the granting of any license for the sale of intoxicating drink he breaks his pledge; if, on the other hand, he consistently rejects every application for a license, he goc3 straight against the law as set forth m a statute which he has specially undertaken to administer. There is no fair w;iy of getting out of the difficulty except by resignation. Yet we find Good Templars constantly coming forward, and sometimes being elected ; and though, m the latter event, they may not give their voice against each application which comes on for consideration, they certainly do lend their weight towards an administration of the act which is, on the whole, contrary to its spirit. But further than that, numerous instances could be adduced, m which regard for their extreme views leads them into positive acts of illegality, or blinds them to the most obvious considerations of fair-play and justice. In the circumstances out of which Mr Justice Richmond's recent judgment arose we recognise the influence of the extreme section of the temperance party, though the committee as a whole must be held responsible for a course of action which has now been declared illegal. The facts are very simple, and are clearly summed up m the opening sentences of the judgment : — It appears from tho statement of the claim that the plaintiffs mado such application m duo courdo at tho last quarterly mooting of tho Committee. Tho claim further states that on tho hearing of tho application tho Committee on thoir own motion took notice of a complaint which had been mado against plaintiff Liddle, that on a reeont date a drnnkon man had boon served with liquor m tho hotol kopt by Liddlo, aud heard tho ovidonco of a Mrs Kelly m support of such complaint. That no notioo whatovor of any objection to tho grant of tho transfer, or of any complaint a3 to tho conduct of tho hotol, or of tho plaintiff Liddle as liconseo, or as proposed traneforeo thereof, had beou given to tho plaintiffs, or oithor of thorn, at any time previously to tho said quarterly meeting. That tho solicitor for tho plaintiff Fnbor applied to tho Committoo for an adjournment of tho application, m order to cnablo tho plaintiff or other porsons affooted thereby to answer tho said objection or complaint, but tho Chairman of tho Committee (defondant Fraserl informed him that tho Coinmitteo had mndo up their minds to rofnso au adjournment of tho heariHg, and also to cancol the licenso, and then stated that tho Committee had unanimously decided to cancol tho licenso. And, further, that tho Coinmitteo did not at such hearing assign or mako known tho objection causing tho refusal of tho transfor or the ground on which tho licenso was cancolled. These allegations aro fully admitted by tho defendants, and thereupon it is contended by tho plaintiffs that tho Coumitteo, by refusing to grant an adjournment for tho purpose of ouabling tho plaintiffs to roply to tho chargo against thorn, as prescribed by sootion G3, havo, m olTeot, rofused to hear and dotermino the application for transfer. To this it is replied that tho Commjttoo choso to act under section 76, whioh enables them, at a quarterly meeting, to put an end to any licenso if it snail bo proved to thoir satisfaction that tho licensed honso is cendnctod m an improper manner. This section it is argued contains no provision for an adjournmont to enable tho person affected to make his defence, and may bo noted upon by tho Committeo of their own motion without previous notification of tho ohargo. Let us put the case even more concisely than Mr Justice Richmond put it. A transfer is applied for. The committee takeß evidence of an objection, and there and then determines that it is sufficient. " But," says the applicant, "I am entitled by the Act to an adjournment, and I require one to enable me to rebut the charge." " Well," says the chairman, "we shall deal with the case under a section which docs not provide for adjournment, and which enables us to cancel the license. On the evidence before ua, wo cancel the license. There is therefore nothing to transfer, and so the matter is ended." Mr Justice Richmond met the reasoning of the committeo with an answer which must at once commend itself to the common-sense of every impartial person. The application was for a transfer, and not to determine whether the license should be cancelled. The committee was there-

I fore bound to the procedure under which the Act provided that transfers should be dealt with, and the applicant was entitled to an adjournment for the purpose of prep -• 'ng himself to meet tbo objection whicl- !. . J been raised. "On reflection," said the learned judge, "it will, I am persuaded, appear to the committee themselves as shocking to the natural sense of justice that the plaintiffs should be denied the opportunity accorded to them by law of giving a deliberate answer to the charge against them considered as an objection to a transfer." But be went even further, and laid it down that, if the question of cancellation bad actually been before the committee, the latter could not have proceeded at once to cancel the license without previous notification to the parties affected, and without giving them an opportunity of being beard m their own defence. "It may he true," be said, " that there is nothing m the statute expressly requiring such notification, but there is nothing to take away the necessity for it." And then he quoted Baron Park as an authority for the proposition that a man cannot incur the loss of his liberty or property for an offence by judicial proceeding unless he has had a fair opportunity of being heard before it was issued ; and Lord Campbell to the same effect — " There must be an opportunity given to every person, before judgment is passed upon him, of being heard m his defence, and it is essential that the charge should always be intimated to the supposed delinquent." But the discomfiture of the Committee was not quite complete even at that point, for Mr Justice Richmond expressed a grave doubt as to whether proof of a single offence against the Act would be sufficient to warrant the forfeiture of a license, supposing that question to be before a committee. What would be required would be to show that "the house was conducted m an improper manner." The judgment left not a vestige of ground under the Committee's feet. It was shown to have been wrong at every point, and to have wrested the provisions of the statute m a manner " shocking to the natural sense of justice." We dare say the men composing this Committee are fair and straightforward enough m the ordinary business of life, but, m the exercise of their functions as administrators of lidensing law, their judgment was distorted by a leaning towards the extremists of the temperance party. It would be well for them and for others placed m a like position to recognise the fact that, by Btraining the Licensing Act to give effect to their peculiar views, they disgust by far the larger portion of the community, and inflict substantial damage on a cause which they honestly desire to serve.