THE NEW ENGLISH ACT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 678, 5 March 1903, Page 23

THE NEW ENGLISH ACT.

SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

(London “ L.V. Gazette.”|)

It is a long, long time since any Parliamentary measure was launched upon, such a bubbling, contrary, expectant sea of controversy, apprehension, and conjecture as that which awaited the splash when the good ship Licensing Ac.t, 1902,” left the slips on January. 1, and bobbed coquettishly in the always uncertain tideway of public opinion. Nor was the speculation that was rife as to the seaworthiness of the craft, in any degree incomprehensible or an warranted. She is, to press the nautical metaphor a stage further, so unwieldly a'nd awkward that nobody can predict with any confidence in what manner she will conduct herself. In parts she is good, but in those parts she is neither good enough nor sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy her critics. In parts she is uncertain, and in parts sb.e is bad. Experiments are right enough in their way, but when the very first axioms of law building are violated to satisfy an amateur mania for experimental legislation, it is only natural that it should be regarded with suspicion and disfavour. One of the three-fold objectives; of the Act is to bring about a reduction of drunkenness by (1) limiting the facilities for obtaining intoxicating liquor, and (2)—to put it with exceeding bluntness —by making it hot for the drunkard. To the drunkard the Act says, “ Get drunk at your peril. I will punish you for getting drunk and for attempting to obtain liquor when you are drunk 1 : I will take your wife and family away from you for being drunk, and I will take particularly good care—so far as photography, topography, and the discernment of the police force permits—that you shall have no opportunity of getting drunk thereafter.” So far, so good. The drunkard is his own worst enemy ; a source of discomfort and worse to his j family, and a red rag to the publican, and now that he is going to be an extra burden to the ratepayers, he will inevitably be even more unpopular. ' ", To the publican the law says (in effect), “ I look to you to assist me in making an avowed Ishmaelite of the drunkard. You must refuse to serve him with further liquor when you see he is drunk 1 , or even allow him to be found on your premises ,in a state of intoxication, and, by the Lord Harry,” continues the highstomached Act, “if you cannot prove that you have obeyed all these behests to the letter I shall hold you responsible for the condition of every drunkard - apprehended in your district, on the word of any officer who lays the charge at your dOOr;V It is right here that the new law maintains its unchallenged title to be regarded as a Hass. To make a man, whether he be publican or primate-, prove himself innocent of. any charge that may be levelled against him, is to demonstrate that OUr Vaunted superiority over the French system of administering law, is a delusion and a myth. The law holds, or , rather it held, all meh innocent until they were proved guilty, but under the new. Act -it makes an extraordinary exception. “ What are you ?” inquires the magistrate when the charge is read out. A publican,” is the reply. “ Then,” replies the representative of justice with a philosophic smile which would be worth another £lO a week to Dan Leno at pantomime time, “ we must write you down guilty. If you had been a prime minister ; Or a postman we would have accepted your plea of not guilty at this stage of 1 the proceedings, but the law appears to 1 eye you with dubiety. . I am sorry for you, my good fellow, but you see what comes of being a publican.” ‘ All this may sound very good fooling, ’ but unfortunately it is nothing of the sort. For whether it be good or bad, regarded as facetiae, it is ridiculous and solemn reality. The publican, or any man who claims the protection of the English law, has a mortal grievance against the law .when by it. he is judged guilty by the mare fact that he is charged with an offence. The law holds no man guilty, and does not even suspect a man of guiltiness until, the charge is proved “ on his front teeth ” —except in the case of the publican, and then only under the new Licen- - ning Act. Much of the Act is drastic, but c the Trade does not complain ; many of its. ( clauses are ludicrous,, but the Trade is riot. -devoid of a* sense of humour. - It is only when flagrant unfairness tramples, big- t booted, through the traditions and the < essence of British law and British justice that, the Trade feels compelled to protest. , What, in the circumstances, ought the Trade to do ? Mr Edward Johnson, the i chairman of the Central Board of the Li- € censed Victuallers Protection Society, would appeal to be in favour of playing a waiting game. ’ “ The Act,” he is re- ( ported to have said, " can be worked if it is administered properly. Like all laws, it will prove to be good or bad, according to the way in which it is administered.” Sir * . Alfred da Rutzett, the chief of the Metropolitan magistrates, is also of this way of thinking. Time will test the new Licen-- - sing Act, he confided 'to an interviewer, and there is no other possible way of determining its efficiency. The > falsely-con-

I victed license-holder may appeal to the j King’s Bench, and if he appeals often ’ enough and with uniform success, “ certain amendments or modifications ” may result. But that, we maintain, is not the point. The Trade, however they may come out of these appeals, are entitled to demand the right of entering the court innocent in the eyes of the law and of the magistrate. We have, at the moment, no quarrel with the magistrates, except from the fact that, as the law now reads, they are commanded to consider the accused publican guilty until his innocence is proved. King’s Bench judgments, Sir Alfred pursued, would disclose the hardships and expose the weaknesses of the Act, and experience would mould it into a workable and permanent shape. Common sense would triumph in the end, and so far as the London magistrates were concerned, he felt confident that common sense would have a real good show. He even cited a case. " Take,” he said, “ the case of a man charged with being drunk.” Such a remark merely brings us back to tb« point from which we started, but with less patience. Why the everlasting case of the drunken man ? We all know that he is intolerable and impossible, and so far as the new Act is concerned he is no worse off —that is to say, he is not more invidiously situated than he was before. Lord Peel “ would like some big Eng- i lish city to make the experiment of tak- | ing over all public-houses within its I boundary and dealing with them as it j pleased.” Compensation is all that is de- i sired, and we are glad to know that his lordship recognises! this, for he is satisfied that no temperance Bill will be passed in Parliament that does rot recognise compensation.”