TRADE TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 449, 2 March 1899, Page 18

TRADE TOPICS.

Norway has recently enacted, a law forbidding the sale of tobacco to youths under sixteen without signed orders from adults. Tourists who offer cigarettes to youths render themselves liable to prosecution, while the police are empowered to confiscate the pipes, cigars, and ciga - rettes of youths who smoke in the public streets, a fine for which may be anything between 2s and £5.

It is reported in London that the committee on the Pure Beer Question, presided over by Earl Pembroke, has now terminated its work, both the majority and minority reports being completed ; but it is apparently not yet certain whether these reports will be presented, to the House of Commons, as the inquiry was one of a departmental character, and not conducted by a Select Committee of Parliament. In speaking of a large sum recently collected in the hospital box of a Victorian hotel, an exchange remarks :— “ There is surely nothing afar fling in the fact. Hotelkeepers and their patrons are the most charitable class in the community. In proportion, the hotelkeeper pays more ,to Government, municipality, and charity than any other person in the State. Apparently the Melbourne police have received instructions to prosecute licensed victuallers with the utmost rigor of the law. In cases of Sunday trading and bar-door open —really one offence—both charges are pressed home. The minimum penalty for bar-door open is £5, though a £2 fine can be imposed for the much more serious matter of Sunday trading. Up till recently it was usual to withdraw the bar-door charge if the other was proved. By the way, the latest recipe for an Opposition victory is for the Conservatives to ally themselves with the Prohibitionists, says the New Zealand Mail. The advice is given by the Press, which apparently imagines the device is something new. Why, this particular game was played at the last general election for all it was worth in half-a-dozen constituencies, and in spite of the treacherous alliance between parties who have absolutely nothing in common, save an unreasoning hatred of Mr Seddon, it proved unavailing.— Exchange. The Aramoho Hotel, on the route to Wanganui, has lately been extensively enlarged and refurnished. Situated close to the Aramoho Railway Station, and commanding a pretty view of the river and surroundings, it stands in a busy and largely increasing centre. It will no doubt be a favorite stopping place for tourists and others. Mr W. S. Poole, late manager of St. John’s Club, and formerly for ten years with Mr C. H. Chavannes, of Wanganui, knows what is required, and I am informed that he intends leaving no stone unturned to accomplish that end.

I must again call attention to the difference between the unity existing in the Trade in Australia, and the petty causes of complaint which cause its disruption in New Zealand. In Queensland there are branch associations throughoutjthe colony, and in addition a United Licensed Victuallers’ Association that embraces the entire state. The same custom obtains in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Why, then, should the old provincial feeling militate against a similar state of affairs in this colony. The Trade here is proportionately as powerful and as great a factor in political economics as in Australia, and yet we lack combination. We possess the latent power of numbers ; what we want is concentration of effort an the appreciation of the necessity of a community of interest.

The name of E. and J. Burke is known the world over in connection with Guinness’ stout. The same great reputation has been established by the firm with Burke’s Dublin whisky. So recognised has this fact become, even in the most remote countries, that the gigantic cellars of E. and J. Burke, in Dublin, are hardly large enough to cope with the vast output. To some extent this is caused by the firm making it a binding rule not to to let any of their whisky go on the market until it is well matured in the wood. Hence there is not a headache in a barrel of Burke’s whisky. The Australasian management of the firm has been recently placed in the capable hands of Mr J. Stanfield Jones, a gentleman especially sent from head-quarters.

“ Many people are not even aware that constables on duty are not permitted to take a drink of strong liquor without the., permission of a superior officer. In England this rule is rather strictly enforced, but in free Australia it is practically a dead letter.. At Bendigo (Victoria) recently Henry Burridge, licensee of the Beehive Exchange Hotel, was proceeded against for selling liquor to Constable Hourigan while on duty. It was proved that Hourigan suffered from an affection of the chest, and had gone openly for his drink, which he took medicinally. Mr Dwyer, the P.M., thereupon struck out the case, remarking that, though a constable was supposed to ask permission from his superior officer, he might die before he got the permit.” I don’t quite understand why the - charge should have read “ selling liquor.” The police in Victoria must be very different from other parts of the colonies if they pay for drinks when on duty.

The Melbourne Sportsman has a laudable way of hitting right out from the shoulder, and I heartily agree with its comment on the following : —Mr John Vale is in Brisbane on a three months’ mission to convert the thirsty Bananalanders to prohibition. To newspaper interviewers he has been frankly asserting that Victorians are on the high road to damnation. He specially singles out for condemnation the Democratic Club and L.V.W. Club. The former, he told the Brisbane Observer, has boxing contests on Sunday mornings, and a concert in the evening, “ with songs of a questionable character.” The cycling club recently passed a resolution authorising the opening of their bar on Sundays, and, of course, Mr Vale feels its end is near at hand. This, of course, is all rubbish, the wonder being that Victorians do not insist on every hotel in the colony being opened for limited Sunday trading. The great English Royal Commission on the Licensing Laws has, it is reported, come to a decision strongly favoring the continuance of limited Sunday trading in Great Britain.

Mr Gralton (president) and Mr Harry Wright (secretary) of the United Licensed Victuallers’ Association of Queensland, are conducting a spirited campaign throughout that colony, organising new branches and addressing meetings in every centre of population. In speaking of the different grievances of the Trade and the recurring aggressive legislation militating against its interests, Mr Wright said that they were attributable to the want of united action of the Trade as a body, which could only be attained by mutual forbearance and organisation for the common good. In referring to the association in New South Wales, he explained that in that colony they had brought their association to the front, and without allying themselves to any political body; in fact, holding themselves strictly aloof from such, had still made themselves a power which every political party was bouud to recognise and reckon with.

At the Prohibition Annual Convention at Gore, Mr Lowden said he thought they had alienated a lot of support through over enthusiasm. If they went to work quietly they might achieve better results. In Clutha success was not achieved by abusing the publicans and by using hard language, but by going to work quietly. He did not believe in personal abuse. This brought Rev. F. W. Isitt tc his feet, of course. “Mr Lowden’s remarks. about personal abuse would be caught at by their opponents. In their crusade against the liquor traffic they employed plain speaking but not personal abuse. It was playing into the enemy’s hands that one of their number should, in all kindness, remonstrate against their abuse.” I wish right here to mark my appreciation of Mr Lowden’s remarks. We, of the Trade, are perfectly willing to meet fair and intelligent opponents, and more than willing to accord them a meed of applause for the temperate expression of their opinions. But men of the Isitt type are to be deprecated, no matter what cause they endeavor to champion, and I speak for the Trade when I say that we are devoutly thankful that the Rev. F. W. Isitt and his brother are against us. They will do us much more good as opponents than they possibly could as friends.

“ At the Police Court, Wanganui, recently before Mr H. W. Northcroft, S.M., James Shore, a prohibited person, was charged with having been found drunk, and also with having used obscene language, and with having wilfully damaged a cab The accused pleaded guily to the charge of drunkenness, but denied the other two charges. After hearing the evidence for the prosecution, led by Sergeant Dwyer, convictions were recorded in all charges. Mr Northcroft, after severely reprimanding the accused, and referring to the fact that there were eignt previous convictions recorded against him, said that he had been treated with the utmost leniency. He would give him but one more chance, and if he found that he again misconducted himself he would assuredly send him to gaol for six or nine months. On the charge of drunkenness accused was fined 20s, in default seven days’ hard labor; on the charge of obscene language he was ordered to come up for sentence when called upon ; while for damaging the cab he was fined ss, and ordered to pay the amount of damage (7s 6d), in default seven days’ imprisonment.” Publicans cannot be too careful as to serving prohibited persons, or those in their

The Licensing Act Fund will be lessened by at least £lO,OOO through the closing of hotels in the Mooroopna district, Victoria. This, of course, will not decrease in the least the consumption of liquors, and it will give the Trade back £lO,OOO of their own money now in the hands of the Government. Wdien the proper time arrives, a poll can be taken in Mooroopna to increase the number of hotels again. It is not often a . one-armed man assaults a robust licensed victualler, but an instance was given in the Kyneton Police Court recently. On the previous Sunday evening a one-armed man, named Kelly, wanted admittance to the Town Hall Hotel to get a drink, bnt Mr Sier, the licensee, refused him. Thereupon Kelly dealt him a blow in the face, which stunned Sier. For the offence Kelly was fined £2, or 14 days’- imprisonment.

The London War Office, which comprises on its staff some of the keenest epicures in brandy that can be found, have placed Joshua’s Boomerang Brandy on its list. The Commander-in-Chief—Lord Wolseley—as is well-known, is most careful of his troops in the matter of alcohol. Only tbe very best possible is permitted in the canteens, and no greater tribute to the genuine merits of Boomerang brandy could be given than the action under its new regime of the War Office.

Mr T. A. Harris, in a letter to the Haw era and Normanby Star, attempts to prove the success of prohibition in the Clutha district, and provides a table showing the decrease in convictions for 1898 as against 1897. To be sure, there is a slight difference, as in 1897 there were twenty-five, and in 1898 but nineteen, but if you take the different types of offences, the argument is against prohibition. For instance, in 1897 there were five convictions for sly-grog selling; in 1898 there were eight, which conclusively proves that at any rate prohibition does not prohibit. In 1897 there was but one conviction for drunkenness, while in 1898 there were two. Again, in 1897 there were no cases of common assault, in 1898 there were three; in 1897 cruelty to animals nil, in 1898 one case. True, there, has been a decrease in assaults on and in thefts, but neither [of these offences are a necessary concomitant of visiting reputable licensed houses. Taken on the whole, the prohibition experiment in Clutha has been an abject failure, and from all accounts more liquor has been sold than before the houses were closed.

Mr T. Taylor, in his description which he entitles “The Shadow of Tammany,” expresses great fear that the present Government may, through holding power so long, and becoming* accustomed to look upon Governmental patronage as their inalienable right, grow to emulate the Tammany organisation of New York, and enter upon an era of Government corruption. Mr Taylor’s fears of general corruption are groundless with our restrictive customs and laws. Since the expose of the Lexow Committee, and the publication of Mr Stead’s ‘ ‘ Satan’s Invisible World,” the public at large have been too apt to confound the name of Tammany with everything that is vile. Tammany has at times done wrong, but the name in the abstract simply stands for the perfection of political organisation, and it is not the system which is so much to be deplored as the members who have prostituted its original aims Mr Taylor would only be too glad to raise up a prohibition Tammany whose autocratic power would deprive everyone of liberty of action and thought, and that is the species of institution that the people want to beware of. Such a Tammany would be worse in its effects than a revival of the Inquisition with a modem prohibitionist Torquemada as its boss. Tammanyism under certain restrictions is worthy of support, but we want neither the Tammany of Bill Tweed in America nor the shadow of the Tammanyism of prohibition, bossed by an irresponsible bigot and agitator like Tommy Taylor, and officered by the Isitts, Crabbes, and Hoskings among his henchmen.

A rather interesting appeal case comes to me from Queensland, which goes very far to prove that a publican’s lot in that colony is not essentially a happy one. In this case appeal was made by Mary Barnett, licensee of the Royal Hotel, Nundah, against the decision of the Brisbane Licensing Bench in convicting her of keeping the hotel open for the sale of liquor on Sunday, December 14, and fining her £5. The appeal was made on the grounds : That there was no evidence disclosed by the complaint or infor- ' mation therein ; no evidence to support the conviction ; that the decision was against the evidence ; that the information was bad for duplicity. Counsel for the appellant said: ‘ ‘ The law pro- ' vided that no licensed victualler should keep his house open for the sale of liquor on a Sunday. The information, however, showed that the prosecution did not understand the interpretatien of the words, ‘ Keep the house open, ’ because the mere fact of the selling of beer was not sufficient—it had to be shown that the house was not only open, but kept open The charge was of opening the house for sale,” of which fact he contended there had not been proof. Samuel Molan, one of the principal witnesses, was again r put into the box, and deposed to having bought two bottles of beer at the hotel on the Saturday - previous, which he fetched away on the following day. The bottles had been placed under the bar counter for him. His Honor, in delivering judgment, said the fact of the doors being open would not justify the justices in convicting the defendant. However, there was the further evidence that a man came there on the Sunday, and that liquor was delivered by the licensee to him • inside the licensed premises. By the 127th section of the Act, it was provided that the delivery of liquor was prima facie evidence of its having been sold. That seemed to him to be sufficient to show the house was kept open for the sale of liquor. The other question was: Were those magistrates justified in convicting in face of evi-’ dence to the contrary ? The evidence to the contrary was not there was no delivery of liquor,' but that the liquor had been bought on the Saturday night. The justices had disbelieved that evidence. He considered the magistrates were ' justified in the course they had taken, and therefore he would dismiss the appeal. 4