MEETING OF THE LICENSING COMMITTEE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVIV, Issue 4448, 22 May 1897, Page 3

MEETING OF THE LICENSING COMMITTEE.

On Tuesday, Ist Juoe, the newly-elected Licensing Committee for the Tuapeka electorate will hold their first sitting at Boxburgb, under the presidency of Mr M'Cartby, S.M. | Of the old committee that administered the licensing affairs of the Tuapeka electorate during the past three years only two members, Messrs Campbell and Laidlaw— speaking iu a corporate sense — survive, the new committee consisting of Messrs Bennet, Campbell, Craig, Jeffrey and Laidlaw. They will have a large amount of business to dispose of at their first sitting, the major portion of it consisting of business of a more or less formal cbaraoter, but yet the sitting will not by any means be destitute of interest, and in one or two instances, at least, a coupla of proposals of importance will be submitted for the consideration of the committee. For instance, an application, we are informed, will be made on behalf of the whole of the hotelkeepers of Lawrence and also of a number of those, in the up-country districts for an exteridiou of the hours of closing from 10 p.m. to 11 o'clock. As to whether the application will be entertained we have no idea whatever. Looking, however, at the vote given at the receut licensing election, we should be inclined to assume that the new committee received something in the form of a popular mandate to make such changes in the existing regulations as they may conceive to be in conformity with the public desire and the general convenience of the district. For our own part we attach very little importance to any supposititious moral benefit that may be derived from formally closing the front doors of a 'licensed house at 10 o'clock instead of 11. There is very little in it except the breeding of whatever artifice and trickery is always certain to arise from small yet vexatious interferences, either with individuals or with whole classes of people. However, the subject is one entirely for the committee, and to their judgment we leave it. But the matter of greatest interest likely to occupy the attention of the committee is that affecting the position, of Mr Collins, ex-hotel-keeper, of Heriot. Mr Collins had the misfortune to reside in ths Clutha licensing district; when the revolt of the Prohibitionists took place there, and he shared the fate of all those engaged in the liquor business in that district. But the political reconstruction of the electorates, which was carried out previous to the general election, threw him into the Tuapeka constituency, and, no longer acknowledging the authority of the Clutha Licensing Committee, he now appeals to the licensing powers of Tuapeka for a re-creation of his forfeited rights. It may be further mentioned, as an episode in connection with the loss of Mr Collins license, that he was granted a wholesale license by Mr Hawkins, 8.M., against the legality of which the Prohibitionists in vain appealed. From a business standpoint, his case is unquestionably a hard one, and being now in a district iv whioh Prohibition does not prevail, it is scarcely possible to imagine he will be debarred from entering into a busiuess from which he has been driven through no fault of his, and in which in this licensing district a large number of other people are privileged to engage.