THE PREMIER AND THE TRADE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 693, 18 June 1903, Page 23

THE PREMIER AND THE TRADE.

Dealing with the recent utterances of the Premier at Hokitika, the New 'Zealand “ Mail ” says :— “ Admitting for the sake of argument that the public has a perfect to control the trade in alcoholic beverages!, then it must not do a wrong to any individual by the exercise of that right. It is here that the existing legislation is, it it seems to us, most defective. Both public and publican are partners, so to speak, in the liquor trade. The public takes its dividend in the shape of a license fee, and the publican has to sell in order to pay that dividend and earn a living out of the business. The public invited the publican to enter into the partnership. It stipulated for specific conditions, and set its minions, the police, the law, and the Magistracy to see that these conditions were well and faithfully fulfilled. If the publican did not spend money in erecting a fine building he would not be taken into partnership, and if he failed to run. his business according to stringent conditions, even in a magnificent house built purposely for the trade, the partnership would be dissolved, and the lossi would be his entirely. Even if he fulfilled all the conditions imposed upon him and the servants of the public could find no fault in him, there was no guarantee that the publican’s interest in a public business would be secured to him. Indeed, the Legislature gave the public the right of making the publican a bankrupt, and made no provision for the slightest consideration being extended to him in the event of his being ruined legally,but most •unrighteously. If the public is entrusted with the making or marring of any business, surely it ought to be obligatory on the public to share in the loss as well as in the profit. The Premier says that if there is undue interference with individual liberty, and the rights of property, the Legislature must not hesitate to do its duty. There has for years been abundant evidence of undue interference in both respects, yet the Legislature has failed to safeguard the one or protect the other. The Government must now invite it to repair the omission.