Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1892. " MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1904, 15 June 1892, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1892. " MEASURES, NOT MEN."

If the decision of the Court of Appeal in the Sydenham licensing case has not emboldened the prohibition licensing committees to act with an outward and arbitrary air of supreme and unquestioned authority, it has, at least, enabled them to understand their position, to know exactly the nature and extent of the powers vested in them by the Act they have undertaken to administer, and thus qualify themselves with perfect freedom from legal restraint or ultimate legal consequen2es to evade the spirit and intention of the law. This and nothing more has the overthrow of Judge Denniston's decision on a technical point accomplished for that growing and persistent, party in the country who seek to prevent the abuse of drink by altogether prohibiting its use. Mr Justice Denniston's decision was that licensing committees are not empowered to close up houses wholesale as was done at Sydenham without any regard to the individual character of such houses, and to the wants and wishes of the minority. That is to say, they must hear evidence, or go through the form of hearing it ; and, as more recent experience of the subject has demonstrated, having so made a pretence of complying with the lawj they can then, without fear or apprehension of ultimate counter-jurisdic-tion from any other quarter, give their predetermined judgment. The Chief Justice, in the course of an exhaustive review of the case, and the intent of the law bearing on it, distinctly laid it down ths>t the objection against the granting of a license on the grounds that it was not required in a particular neighbourhood was not a valid one, and could not be upheld by the existing law. But Judge "Williams went even further, and declared that the Licensing Act was never intended for the purpose to which it is being applied by the prohibitionists, ft was framed, he said, to regulate, not to destroy, the liquor trade. But while in complete agreement with the broad view of the law taken by Judge Denniston, the Appeal Court refused to endorse that portion of his judgment which laid it down as lawful for the Court to issue an order, .even before a licensing committee sat, restraining them from refusing licenses on the sole grounds that such houses were not required by a majority of the residents. The point, it may be seen, is entirely a technical one, and has no direct bearing on the broad principle involved in the law, if, indeed, it is possible to say with accuracy that there can be any guiding principle in a law that can be administered in direct and open antagonism to the interpretation placed upon it by a court composed of the highest and most

learned judicial authorities in the land. The Court of Appeal has laid it down iv precise and Uiutinct terms that if a licensing committee pledge themselves beforehand not to renew any ]iop»is*>s on any conditions whatsoever, as, for instance, prohibition committees have recently done, th^y are endeavouring by evasion to repeal the law which permits public houses to exist.

From the exposition of the Jaw given by the judges in the appeaT case, it is clear that the Licensing Act was not. intended to be used as a weapon for the destruction of the liquor trad", but rather with the view of ensuring that it be properly conducted and regulated, with a due regard, we should say, to meet the reasonable requirements of the public without, at the same time, encroaching on the line that must in all cases be drawn where morality or the social welfare ot a community is to be considered. But it is in the exercise of this discretionary power that all the trouble lies. Some committees are content with restricting the number of licensed houses to a point compatible with the reasonablf requirements and convenience of the public; others again are convinced that the public good demands the complete abolit on of the trade, and both, actuated, we may be sure, with the must, honest convictions and the sincerest, desire to serve the public, administer the law in their own way. The law, according to the interpretation placed upon it by the judges of the Court of Appeal, was not intended for the prohibition of the liquor trade, but it, nevertheless, can be employed for that purpose, though to do so successfully requires a certain amount of dissimulation and pretence easily got over by people who believe as strongly in their mission as prohibitionists do, behoving that the end justifies the means. At Roslyn a few days <tgo the Licensiug Committee refused to renew a single application, safeguarding themselves, at the same time, by first hearing all that was to be said in favour of the applications and then calmly delivering their judgment. In " hearing " the objections against what was well-known to be their avowed intention, the Committee outwardly complied with the law, and thus accomplished their designs with greater security. But they were, nevertheless, guilty of evasion, and virtually repealed the law to suit their own purposes. The law, it is quite clear, has been framed in a slovenly and defective manner, as so many of our laws are; and until it has been amended and recast and deprived of the anomalies that now disfigure it, the condition of those engaged in the liquor trade will be anything but tolerable. We believe in such legislation as will to a leasonable extent embody the opinions of the majority in licensing matters as in all other things, believing that shoald the liquor trade and its large attendant interests be allowed to outgrow or dominate public opinion reaction is sure to follow. But while believing in the public sentiment being respected, we hold that the law should be so framed that the application of this sentiment shoald be of a more general, settled, and evenly distributed character. It is not consistent with reason that in one quarter publicans should be hunted and harassed and deprived without appeal of the only means of livelihood possessed by themselves and their families ; while in the neighbouring district, it may be, the worst forms of abuses and excesses are permitted. The law may be repressive, but we hardly think it should be repression of such a kind as may be stretched to the point of unconditional prohibition in one place and so administered as to permit of excess in another.