LICENSING COMMITTEES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1469, 20 February 1885, Page 2

LICENSING COMMITTEES.

To the Editor. Sir, —On the 13th inst. I wrote to you a letter addressed to the intelligent portion of the coramuDuy outside the pale of Tetnplarism respecting the light that any Good Templar could have if he were an

honorable or an honest man to sit upon any Licensing Bench, inasmuch as Good Tempiacism is one thing ani the licensing law regulating the sale of liquor is another and a very d : fferent thing, and in that letter I endeavored to show the true position of the matter; to that letter there has been, I believe, two replies. 1

aay “ I believe ” advisedly, as not having seen any .portion of the Guardian of the 18th inst., I have not, of course, seen or read the letter which is, as I am informed, printed in that issue and signed “G. Andrews ” and half the alphabet—at

least this is the way my informant puts it But I have seen the production in your last night’s issue that appeared above those two magic words “ A. Saunders,” and I have read This specimen upon the whole Of what the learned call rigmarole without finding myself very parti cularly edified ; in fact, . whi’st reading the paragraph about the fathers

and mother., I did not feel particularly sure the sisters, and the cousins, and the aunts were not going to follow. Having read this letter I am quite prepared to credit the letter said to be in your issue of the 18th as being a more rational reply to mine of the 13th, even though it be signed by a Good Templar

and half the alphabet. I will not answer either of these letters. Mine of the 13tb was not addressed to the Good Templar portion of the community. Neither is this, for whatever follies I am destined to commit in the future 1 think 1 may venture to prophesy that arguing with a Good Templar on the liquor question will not be one of them. This letter I address

to the same portion of the community as 1 addressed my last one, as there is another matter in connection with a Good Templar sitting on a Licensing Bench which I think that portion of the community whom I now address will do well to consider; and here let me say at once, I am not writing with the wish or intention of doing aught but to set you thinking for yourselves. The matter I would draw your attention to is

this. Is it right, or honest, or proper that any Good Templar should sit upon any Licensing Bench after he has given a pledge to close hotels at any specified hour, and has been elected on that pledge or ticket. How can such a man be an honest and an upright judge? Look at this thing for yourselves. The law permits an hotelkeeper to keep his house

open—even unto twelve o’clock —if a Committee’s permission to do so be obtained. When an hotelkeeper applies to a Licensing Bench to permit his house to be open until eleven or twelve .o’clock at night, he is doing a lawful and proper thing and is exercising his legal right. What would be the use of any hotelkeeper

exercising this legal right before a Bench of Good Templars elected on the ten o’clock closing ticket. Would a Bench of this sort be a Bench of fair and impartial Judges ? Suppose the hotelkeeper establishes in Court by undeniab’y the best evidence a very much better case than the

other side, what are the Good Templar Bench to do then ? Why, either to he unjust judges and not decide accDrding to the best evidence, as is done in other matters, and so keep their ten,o'olock election pledge, or they must be righteous judges and decide according to law and evidence

and by so doing turn traitors to thoce who elected them. In this matter, again, 1 aver, the Qaod Templar is on the horns of a dilemma. If be is a true and upright judge be is false to his election pledge and ticket and cold water creed generally, and if true to these things he may find himself compelled

to be a false and dishonest judge. I say that with a Good Templar Bench however good an hotelkeeper’s case is, he cannot win it. His case is prejudged. It was decided at the election, and the taking of evidence, and the address of lawyers in the Court, is a farce which might just as well not be played. His

Judges have pledged themselves by their election ticket and by their cold water creed. The butcher and baker and candlestick-maker can take their legal matters before a presumably fair, impartial and upright judge—a judge without bias or leaning in the matter. This is the

spirit of the English law. Does any one of my readers, in possession of his senses, for one moment imagine that a cold water Bench is an impartial Bench. Look at their principles—the pamphlets they publish—the letters they writQ —the lectures they give and applaud, and then ask yourself, do such men as th< 93 know the meaning of fair play or impartiality in connec-

tion with liquor or with a law regulating the sale of it. If the butcher and baker and candlestick maker can have an unbiassed Bench why should not the hotelkeeper and publican too? Now that I am on the subject of licensinglaw, I will say a word or two as to election of Committees, which, I think, now proceeds upon a very bad system,

being principally a squabble between Good Templar nominees pledged one way and Licensed Victualler nominees pledged another way. The personal fitness of the candidate being a matter of secondary importance. The pledge is the thing, and the consequence is'Committees are elected on the narrow basis instead of the broad

view. For this bad state of affairs it appear to me the pugnacious Good Templars are responsible. They will not let well alone. They will have their pound of flesh in the shape of Templar nominees, and the consequence is that in self defence the licensed victuallers will have their nominees, and so an election of Licensing Commissioners Instead of being a fair election of five meat fit men by the community, is a battle between cold

water and alcohol, resulting in the election of Benches inferior to the nominated Benches in vogue before the present Act came into force. Let me ask you, would it not be better for us all if this sort of unseemly bustle were abandoned and we had a nominated Bench in old style—a Bench where there would be very little

chance of a man of very inferior calibre ever obtaining a seat. One thing you might do (or me, Mr editor, and that is, assure Mr A. Saunders, who credits me with being an hotelkeeper and a tippler, that I an} neither the one nor the other, nor am I anything like thereunto. I would do so myself did I not know that

gentleman with Mr A. Saunders’s very high opinion of Mr A. Saunders would consider his very unhappy inferences as to myself entitled to more weight than my denial.—lam, still, Mr Editor, A BELIEVER IN THE USB AND HOT THE AB .SE OF ALCOHOL.

[We accede to our correspondent’s request and assure Mr Saunders that ‘•' A Believer in the use and not the abuse of alcohol ” is neither an hotelkeeper or a tippler.—Ep. A. Q.]