LIQUOR CONTROL.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15874, 13 April 1917, Page 8

LIQUOR CONTROL.

INTERESTING EXPERIMENT IN

VICTORIA

(Thou orn own coBRK?OM>Hrrr.)

SYDNEY, April -1

One of the most interesting experiments yet attempted in liquor licensing legislation has just completed its first stage of ten years in Victoria, and most people who have surveyed the results deem them eminently satisfactory.

Prior to 1906, Victoria had the uncertain and inequitable local option law. As in New Zealand, the inadequacies of the system wero pronounced, and something better was sought. So an Act was passed having for its object the reduction of the number of hotels, the improvement of the quality of those that remained, and the fair compensation of tho hotelkeepers forced out of business. The system, which was to be tried for ten years from 1906, was roughly as follows:—The number of licenses in each district was fixed on a population basis, and all licenses in excess of the stipulated number were to be gradually cancelled. There were then 5448 licenses in Victoria, which total was 1368 in excess of the number to be permitted. The compensation payable to owners and licensees put out of business was based on the value of the hotel during three years prior to 1906. A Compensation Fund was created by an annual levy of 3 per cent, of the oost of the liquor purchased by each hotelkeeper. As many of the cxcess hotels were to be wiped out each year as the money thus made available would allow. A Licenses Reduction Board took charge of the experiment.

The ten years expired on December 31st. In that time £5i0,040 was pwid into the Compensat ion Fund, and with £540,851 of this 1054 hotels wero dclicensed. When the Board started operations almost all the districts were over-licensed, and as the Board's policy was to cut out tho drinking shop and the badly-conducted hotel, there was keen competition among hotelkeepers to appear pleasing in the eight of the Board. The effect, from a public point of view/ was excellent. But as the Board's operations continued the number of districts not over-licensed increased. and these licenses, haying no particular inducement to be otherwise, were in some instances guilty of unsatisfactory conduct. With the expiry of the ten years, Victoria was to revert to the local potion system, and the first vote was to Ve taken at the first general election after January, 1917. The Licenses Heauction Bonrcl has become a Licensing Court. But, on account of the war, the first local option poll has been postponed until the second general election after January, 1917, and the Licensing Court has been instructed to proceed in the meantime "as if reduction had been carried in overv licensing district throughout the State." The Licensing Court is now proccedine, with enthusiasm, to deal with thoee licensees who _ have _ been conducting their houses in a disreputable manner, and defying the Licensing Board because they thought they were safe in an under-licensed district.