TRADE TROPICS

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 511, 4 October 1900, Page 18

TRADE TROPICS

I hear that Mr George Lorain its retiring from the Opitnni Hotel, and that Mr Edward Bain succeeds him.

I am informed that the re-building of the Kohukohu Hotel, which was recently destroyed by fire, is to be proceeded with at once.

Mr Thomas Enwright assumed possession of the E lerslie Hotel last week. As Mr and Mrs Enwright are quite at home in the hotelkeeping business, visitors and residents will be afforded every attention and comfort. I wish both the proprietor and his worthy better half every success in their new undertaking.

Mr H. W. Brabant gave judgment in the Howe street sly grog-selling case last Saturday morning. He held that the four charges of selling beer without a license were clearly proved. Defendant was convicted and fined £5 on each each charge, £2O in all, to be be recovered by distress, or in default one month’s hard labour. Fourteen days were allowed defendant in which to pay the fine. x

A Club Licensing Bill is suggested in New South Wales. It is understood that the proposed bill is not to interfere with the Clubs legitimately established, but will aim at the supervision of so-called Clubs, which tp all intents and purposes are established only ih opposition to hotels, while they feyade the many restrictions and penalties which licensed victuallers have to respect.

A definite step was taken the other day in connection with the establishment of another licensed house in New Plymouth. A local firm of solicitors, on behalf of a client, - wrote .to .the Harbour Board applying for certain sections in a reserve opposite the railway station. As .the reserve at present is in process of being levelled, the Board decided to defer the question. The solicitors pointed out that their client was ready to effect improvements to the value of £2OOO on the sections. —(Taranaki Correspondent.)

Sir Thomas Lipton has made an offer to the Government of Victoria, Australia, to run the wines of the colony in England ; but the vignerous havs set their faces against the proposal..He asked for a subsidy of £5OOO a-year for eight years, in return for which he offered to raisecapita) to the amount of £2,000,000 and debenture capital to the amount of £500,000, to establish a depot in Melbourne and to distribute wine through his 3000 agencies. Bis intention was to spend £20,000 annually on advertising, and to begin operations with a stock of from 200 to 300 hogsheads.

An accommodation house at Inangahua Junction was burned down last week. A lad named Edward Mutton was burnt to death in the fire.

• In Queensland, Australia, the Licensing Commission has been making a tour of the northern portion of the colony with the object of inquiring into the liquor trade. Their report is awaited with interest. There is likely to be the same difficulty there as in England, as it is understood that there will be a number of ditsents from the finding of the majority. The weight of evidence, it is said, is against the temperance party, and the principal witnesses even go so far as to urge that the time has arrived when the hotels should be permitted to sell liquors during certain hours on Sunday. At present throughout Australia, Sunday closing is rigidly enforced ; but, as in Scotland, there seem to be plenty of opportunities of “ getting a drink.”

To those who are fond of that most seductive of liqueurs “Chartreuse ” the following few lines may prove interesting : —“ When the Republic of France suppressed so many of the religious orders, it made an exception of the Carthusians. The reasons for this were good and sufficient. First the Carthusians paid into the French Treasury 600,000 francs annually, duty on alcohol used in the manufacture of Chartreuse. The profits realised from the industry amount to £lOO,OOO sterling annually. This sum is expended for the general welfare of the surrounding country. Not only do they relieve the needy, but they support hospitals, schools, and churches, as well as build roads, bridges, and the like. No wonder France hesitated before ostracising an order of such beneficent workers. In 1889 it was reported that the Rothchilds offered 80,000,000 francs for the Chartreuse recipes and business. The wording of a recent decision would indicate that the proposition was refused. — Bonfort's.

There can be no competition between Dunville’s and Dewar’s whiskies since one is Irish and the other Scotch. At the same time? both firms are anxious to make known the fact that they have secured the patronage of M. Loubet, the President of the French Republic, and have been given the highest award. The other day Messrs Dewar announced that in class 61 of the Paris Exhibition the only “ Grand Prix ” was awarded to Messrs John Dewar and Sons, Ltd., distillers, of Perth and London. On the top of this came the following announcement: —Messrs Dunviile and Co. have received the following telegram from their stand at the Paris Exhibition “Dunvilles’, Belfast. —Official and authentic jury have awarded you diploma and gold medal, highest award, for Irish whiskies, class 61; also diploma and silver medal for model of distillery plant, highest award, class 55 ; have also secured patronage of M. Loubet, the President of France; jour stand being the only one visited by the President and suite on their visit to the British section oh 26th ult., when he pronounced the whisky ‘ tres bon,’ thus placing your firm Al in Irish whiskies. —M. Cbeeby.” Not to be outdone, Messrs Dewar point but that a recent number of Le Journal contained a full description of the visit of the President of the French Republic to the Exhibition in which the following paragraph appeared : —“ Ihe President stopped in front of the stand of the celebrated house of John Dewar and Sons, of Perth, represented in Paris by M. Gillet, 201, Rue Lecourbe, and honoured those gentlemen by tasting their whisky, so well-known throughout the entire world.”

When the English Par lament re-assemble 6 next year it may be presumed that the “ Bill for the abolition of tied houses.” which is backed by Mr Broadhurst, Sir John Brunner, Mr T. Bayley, Mr Herbert Lewis, and Mr Hazell, and which was somewhat humorously put down for its second reading on the Monday before the will be re introduced. Of course it will be strenuously opposed by the brewers. At the same time, the licensed victuallers, as a body, will be only too pleased to see some reform in thio direction, for the “ tied” system is proving a great hindrance to the success of the small publican, who is compelled to sell anything and everything that the brewers and distillers choose to foist on him. The general public.are also bound to benefit by the passing of such a measure, since they may depend upon obtaining a genuine article for their money. There, are practically only two clauses in the BiH, which read as follows :—(1) From and after the passing of this Act any covenant or agreement binding the holder of a license for the sale of ale, beer, or spirituous liquors for .-.consumption on the' premises, to purchase. such ale, beer, or spirituous liquors, or any part thereof, from any specified person or persons shall be deemed to be :an unreasonable covenant in restraint of trade, and shall be void. Provided always that this section shall not apply to any license granted before the passing of this Act unless and until application shall be made for a renewal thereof. (2) U pon any application for the grant or renewal of a-license for the sale of ale, beer, or spirituous liquors, to be consumed on the premises, the licensing authorities shall require the applicant to satisfy them that he is not under any such covenant or agreement as aforesaid; and in the case of an application for the renewal of a license that has been granted or renewed subsequently to the passing of. this Act, that he has not been under any such covenant since the granting or renewal of the license, as the case may be, and unless the said licensing authority is so satisfied it shall not grant or renew such license. It will be observed that the Bill is not to be made retrospective It will not affect licenses granted before the Act was passed; but when an application for a transfer or renewal comes forward it will then be open to the magistrates to refuse either if the covenant contains any prohibitory clauses. This will give the licensed victualler a power, of which it may be assumed he will not be slow to take advantage.

Queen Victoria was charged 700 francs for a plain breakfast by a Swiss innkeeper He was remonstrate a with on the ground that eggs were plentiful, but replied, “Yes, but sovereigns are scarce.”

The South Australian Register, in a recent issue, says :—“ Fifty years ago to day the veteran vine grower, Mr thomas Hardy, landed in South Australia. He is one of the few who can say that he'never left the British Empire in coming to Australia, for the ship that brought him bore that name. His useful career began on board, as he was appointed schoolmaster over the Protestant lads ; a Dublin man named Walker having charge of the Roman Catholic boys. After two visits to the Victorian gold diggings, with the proceeds of bis labour he settled at Bankside in 1853, and there he has resided ever since. In 1854 he planted his first acre of vines, and in 1859 took the first fruits, consisting of two hogsheads of wine, to Eng and, probably one of the first shipments of that article from the colony. Very few have done more to advance the wine industry than Mr Hardy. He started the first wine bar in Adelaide, which did much to break down the prejudice against wine, and increased the sale greatly. In 1883 he, with his youngest son, Mr R. B. Hardy, visited the vineyards of California, and afterwards Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, and gave his fellow-vign rona of Australia the benefit of his observations in a series of letters to The Register. Although over the three score years and ten he is still active, and a useful member of the Boyal Agricultural Society, the Central Agricultural Bureau, and several other public institutions.. In 1885 he gave valuable evidence before a Royal Commission in Victoria on vine-growing and the (Lying of raisins and currants, which greatly stimulated planting in that colony.”

During the recent discussion in the House On the question of licenses in the King Country, Mr Hone Heke said s —Allow me to inform members of this fact; that in native settlements where large native meetings are being held, they set up a committee of control. Powers are given that committee by the people and the chief to look after the welfare of that settlement, and especially to prevent the introduction of liquors to the settlement during the time of such meeting, and during all time. They impose a fine, and any person coming into the eettlement under the influence of liquor is mulcted in a fine ranging fom2s6d to £l. I can tell you that the state of affairs now at these huis or meetings is such that there is no case of drunkenness at all, and that has been controlled by the regulation of the Maori committees. The Maoris are now fully alive to their own interests, and they are not really too fond of liquors. The existing state of affairs amongst the natives now, compared with that of ten to twenty years ago, is entirely higher. I think, if any person of a reasonable mind—it does not matter whether he is a prohibitionist dr not —goes through the King Country, not for the purpose of establishing set convictions, but for the purpose of ascertainii g for himself the true state of affairs, he will see the inner working of the thing, and his experience will be such as I have already stated. Io my mind, the sooner licenses are granted in the King Country the better. I desire only to impress upon members of the House the desirability of considering earnestly and seriously the question of allowing licenses to be granted in the King Country. My opinion is that the question sLou.d be left to the people to decide—to the Maoris and Europeans who live there—that we should give them the right to express themselves either one way or the other. I think that it is only right, and that those who believe in the rights of the people will be perfecily safe in handing over t» the people in the King Country the right to give their voices either one way or the other.

The Sydney Bulletin says that, Nathaniel Levi, M.L.C., is trying to d® Victoria a good turn with a Bill providing that a license may be transferred from one public-house to another in the same district, provided the new house is much better than the old. Under the foolish" law fixed on Victoria in the days when a teetotal Ministry lay like a keg of cold tea on that province’s chest, a license can’t be transferred to any place more than a certain very small number of feet distant from the old original pub. It was in the wealthy days that this was enacted, Just when the silly law was passed, dozens of owners of old; mouldered cockroach-haunted wooden pubs, in country towns were building fine new stone or brick premises with a view to shifting their businesses and. pulling down the superannuated shanties. The law shut down like a steel trap on any transfer of license,, except when the new place happened to be just alongside the old one, so in many caaesthe new hotel is a sly groggeiy. while the licensed business is carried on in a wOoden j wreck, which has ceased to he an hotel because n.O boarder will stay there, and is only, a dirty shed used for drinking purposes. The best example of how the new stroke of genius worked that the-writer eve r met was at a little town on a branch line in the N-W. district A fine large, luxurious brick hotel was being built when the intelligent statutestepped in and prevented the owner getting a transfer of his license from his old cratedown the road. The new place was 1 Jft, too far away from the old one, or something to that effect. So he kept on the old place to save his license, and the new one because he couldn’t sell it for a butter-factory or a lunatiq asylum, and people stay at the new place, and walk down tothe old one for a drink, and carry their spare drink back with them in their pockets. -Nobody stays in the old place except the drinkseller, and a dog, and some cockroaches and rats, and a. gopher or two, and a large centipede, and three. worms and a blow-fly. The owner would gladly put a fire-stick into it and remove a longstandingeyesore if only he could remove his license to the new’establishment; but the sapient law says he musn’t. And all over Victoria similar places are to be found. Nat Levi, M.L.C., as a member of a House that understands good liquor and likes, to have its drink comfortably, has struck a valu-able-ide*.