A COMPARISON

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 985, 21 January 1909, Page 22

A COMPARISON

During last week two men of Waihi were fined in one instance £5O and in the other £ 60, for being found in possession of an illicit still, and a quantity of newly brewed liquor. The charges were heard in Waihi before the magistrate Mr. Burgess. A strange feature of the case was that the characters of the accused were vouched for by witnesses who admitted that they were prominent nolicense workers, but who were at a loss to explain how they reconciled their presence in the witness box, giving evidence in defence of a convicted /illicit manufacturer of spirits, with their no-license principles. It is as we have ever argued, no-license and illicit trading go hand in hand. Can we come to any other conclusion than the convicted men, their friends, and relations voted boldly for nolicense at the November poll. It is in the interest of their business to do so. Now for the comparison. About the same day a charge was heard before Mr. R. M. Dyer, S.M., in Auckland against the lessee of the Mansion House at the Island of Kawau for selling liquor without a license. The offence was admitted, and a fine of £5O inflicted. The awful offence being that the lessee had supplied policemen, who posed as boarders at the house, with liquor. No great harm could have been done, as Kawau is many miles from the nearest licensed house, the offence being committed under what appears to be a misapprehencion regarding the status of Kawau in regard to the Licensing Laws. In the other case w.e have two men who deliberately manufactured a connection which can only be vile, and who may have in their time sold and distributed thousands of gallons of what can only be called fire water, and stuff which, no doubt, has largely helped the recent no-license vote in Waihi, and in all probabilities brought odium on the licensed trade of that town, to say nothing of the bameful effect of the firewater on the workers who were induced, by its cheapness and uncontrolled traffic, to purchase. And yet we find the purveyors of this class of stuff, who could do more injury with one brew of their spirits than the

lessee of Kawau could do in a lifetime by the occasional sale of good liquor, placed on the same level in the matter of punishment as the ratter. And the characters of such men, who have been spreading ruin and destruction in their locality, is vouched for, on oath, by admitted no-license workers. Truly, it has often been said that the minds of our law givers are wonderful in. their decisions. More wonderful still are the minds of nolicense workers.