DAILY NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7722, 4 June 1903, Page 2

DAILY NOTES.

We can hardly believe ten- o'clock, that the authors of the petition to the Christchurch Licensing Committee in favour of ten o'clock licenses were sincere in their desire for this reform. Had they been really anxious to persuade the committee to close the hotel bars at ten o'clock, they might surely have employed a better means of cariying out their wishes than to present a petition bearing no more than seven or eight hundred signatures. Such a course is so foreign to the usual tactics of the prohibition party' that we are tempted to question the sincerity of the movement. Ib looks more in keeping with the party's avowed intention of abstaining from reform of any kind rather than a half-hearted attempt to remodel the liquor traffic. The necessity of having fire escapes, hotels efficiently supplied •with fire escapes is a matter of such supreme importance to the public that any pronouncement on the equipment of the local hotels is always interesting. 'The report on this subject submitted by the 'superintendent of the Christchurch Fire Brigade to the Licensing Committee yesterday was not only interesting, but it was also very satisfactory. According to Mr Smith, in the matter of the provision made and the facilities afforded for escape in case of fire, the Christchurch licensed houses are far beyond those in the other cities of the colony. Especially is this the case in the buildings either recently erected or in the course of construction. This is good news indeed. As the Board of Governors secondary of Canterbury College has education', declined to allow the HighSchools under its control to be used for the Education Department's scheme of free secondary education, the North Canterbury Board of Education has been obliged to cast about for other means of satisfying the demand for this form of instruction. At its meeting yesterday, ihe i latter Board issued what practically amounted to an invitation to the various school committees in the district to assist it in carrying out the object which it has in. view.. The committees will . be asked to make inquiries with a view of discovering whether a sufficiency of pupils would be forthcoming in the event of a district High School being established in the city. This and other information will be sent to the Board, and the latter will then decide whether it will establish a school. At tiis late date it the s^tate is amusing to have ; an adbtttcher. mission from the Opposition Press that; until the details of the Premier's meat scheme are available, ifc is idle to discuss the matter. For the past week the Conservative newspapers have nofc-only been jdisciissing the proposals, but have also been condemning them as freely as their vocabulary permitted. Without having anything more definite on which to base their conclusions than the bare outline of the proposals, they have criticised them, condemned them, held their author j up to* ridicule, and, generally speaking, ' done __ek "h^t to prejudice their readers

against the scheme. Having) prejudged the case, they are now good enough to admit that .their strictures have been so much waste of time. knßm___M____noamiH^K__n^H