THE SECTIONS IN CONFLICT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1083, 8 December 1910, Page 21

THE SECTIONS IN CONFLICT.

“When doctors, lawyers and magistrates disagree,” Mr. Palmer con- : tinned, “their patients, clients, and the public generally suffer. One magistrate may hold that Section 37 ■- safeguards the man in the no-license : district; another, reading Section 38 : with it, may find that a breach of the law has been committed. I am ? not prepared to say whether it would ; be competent for the Police to proceed against a person under both sections of the Act for the one offence, although it is beyond question that dual charges might be laid against him of (1) Keeping, or using, his premises as a place of resort for the consumption of intoxicating liquor. This charge would of course be laid under section 37, and (2) -Of storing or keeping liquor for other persons, this charge being made under section 38. "You may have noticed that breaches of section 37 are punishable by ‘a fine not exceeding twenty pounds for every day on which the premises are so kept or used,’ but, breaches of section 38, involve, in the case of a first bffence, ‘a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, and for a second or subsequent offence . . . imprisonment for any term not exceeding three months’. Section 38 is decidedly more drastic in its effect than section 37, and introduces a new and altogether unlooked for danger to owners of property, because it makes them responsible for the actions of their tenants, and renders them liable to penalties of a precisely similar extent to those that may be incurred by such tenants through voluntary, or involuntary, breaches of the law. Say the man who has been entertaining his friends, is held to have ‘stored or kept liquor for other persons’ on his premises. What happens? The man who has ‘leased, let, hired, or permitted or suffered’ such premises to be so used, is also liable to be proceeded against, and, in the long run, to be penalised to an even greater extent than his tenant. Say ij a man owns half-a-dozen houses, or (more, and that first one, then.. an- | other of his tenants is convicted under section 38. The property owner would be charged in each instance with leasing, letting, hiring or permitting, or suffering, the premises to Ji be used for the purpose of storing liquor for other persons. But, while | the tenants would escape with a fine, because in each , instance it would be a first offence, the unfortunate property owner, having already been | convicted, would be arbitrarily sen- | tenced to ‘imprisonment for any term not exceeding three months,’ when brought to Court to answer for the laches of the second or further tenants- I am quite prepared to be told that I take an extreme and far-fetch-ed view of the new law; but then it must be remembered that, in- New Zealand, unfortunately, we are largely j ruled, in licensing matters, by extremists, and there is, moreover, a very considerable section of the public that is always insisting upon the maintenance of the law in its entirety, as witness the requests pre- | ferred by the many deputations from

no-license districts that have waited upon Ministers during the last three I years. The views I am placing before you are, however, by no means singular to myself. They are held by gentlemen who have greater experience and ability in legal matters than I can claim to possess, and they are therefore entitled to the serious consideration of your readers.” A CONCLUDING WORD. “In conclusion,” Mr. Palmer said, "I think it is clear that the new law throws an altogether novel, and decidedly onerous responsibility upon the owners of property in no-license districts; and one that is fraught with very harrassing possibilities. It materially .curtails, if it does not altogether destroy, the personal liberty of action possessed by residents of such districts, and, even in their legitimate use of alcoholic liquors, Places them so largely at the mercy of the Police, that it is almost impos-i Bible to predict, with any sort of accuracy, what may, or may not, happen in no-license areas under the new regime. We, who favour license, may, however, congratulate ourselves upon the fact that the law now goes far in the direction of enforcing the ‘Nolicense, no liquor’ principle, that the late Mr. Seddon used to insist, ought to be brought into operation in districts voting no-license. In that respect it Is at least logical, in that it (brings home to the public mind, the true object of the No-license movement, or propaganda. I think we

may well say of the new law, what a Wanganui solicitor said in 1904: ‘The Licensing laws embarrass the hotel-keepers, who have got to obey them; they puzzle the police who are supposed to administer them, they bewilder the magistrates who have to construe them, and they enrich the pockets of the lawyers whose business it is to interpret them.’ ”