ACCUSER AND JUDGE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 675, 12 February 1903, Page 20

ACCUSER AND JUDGE.

It has been decided by the council of the churches in Dunedin that, with a view to giving effect to the recent vote in favour of reduction, vigorous efforts be made to nominate a strong temperance committee at the next election of the lioening bench. In this announcement we have the very root of the objection to the existing method of appointing licensing committees, to which reference has more than once been made in this column. In the recent licensing contest at Dunedin, and all over the colony, there were two parties, the prohibition and the anti-prohibition. These occupied, so to speak, the position of plaintiff and defendant, and now one of these parties in Dunedin, having secured the verdict of the jury, desires to adjudicate and fix the proportions of the award or penalty, whatever it may be convenient to call it. It is, of course, true that, in certain cases jury does fix the amount to be paid, but. in those it Jis assumed that the jurymen are governed by the principles of strict justice, and are acting with a full and particular knowledge of every detail of the transaction. It would be ludicrous to assert that the electors have come to a calm and dispassionate conclusion upon the issues submitted for the licening poll. They are in the great majority of cases quite incapable of assimilating the arguments pro and con, and have been swayed by frenzied appeals based on half truths and mere sentiment. Nevertheless, we do not seek to get behind their votes. So long as the present law remains it must be carried out, and if the specified majority of the people vote for reduction in the number of hotels there must of course be a reduction. The law, however, has made provision for the exercise of discretion. A minimum and maximum have been fixed, and between these limits the licensing committee may exercise authority. It may close five per cent or it may close twenty per cent of the hotels, but if the committee is to be composed of members of the prohibition party this discretionary power is an idle thing, since the maximum number will assuredly be taken. The framers of the law unquestionably contemplated impartial consideration of the issue, but it is difficult to see how this can be secured so long as the committees are elected under the present system.