Licensing Bill and the Council.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19176, 6 December 1927, Page 10

Licensing Bill and the Council.

To what lengths fanaticism -will go was shown .yesterday by the attack of Mr McCombs on the Legislative Council. Although the Council cannot be abolished without the approval and cooperation of the Imperial Parliament, Mr McCombs would, if he could, put it out of existence at once for doing its first and most elementary duty. It exists, primarily, to protect the public when the House of Representatives acts impetuously, whether the cause is excitement or carelessness or both. Another purpose, though this is secondary, is to check, or revise, or otherwise overhaul the work of the Lower House in a calmer and more judicial mood, and it is not always easy to say where this purpose ends and the first begins. But in the case of the Licensing Bill the situation was unusually clear. A Bill had been passed which the public had never asked for, and which considerably more than half of them, if they had been given a chance, would have utterly condemned. ' This had taken place partly through carelessness, partly through trickery, partly through lack of intelligence in the House itself, but largely through a vicious form of campaigning during and before the General Election; and the Legislative Council said simply that the Bill was not.the will of the people. If the Council was wrong, the people will say so at the next election, and the Lower House will then have its way. But until the public have said this, the Council must suppose that they do not wish to say it, and must also—to put the case on its very feeblest foundation —preserve them the right to say it. There were many reasons over and above elementary one why the Licensing Bill should not have been passed unamended. But Mr McCombs wants the Council abolished for carrying out the first, and plainest, and most fundamental of all its duties, and it is just as well to remember that there are thousands of other fanatical Prohibitionists who wish he could have his I way.

And before the Bill is quite forgotten —except as a horrible example, it cannot be forgotten too soon—it is perhaps worth while looking for a moment at the "reasons" advanced for and against it at the conferences of managers from both Houses. Although it was impossible for the Lower House to advance good reasons for its objection to the Council's amendments, it is simply astonishing that it should have put it forward as a serious argument that "the proposal to substitute a six- " year poll for the three-year poll . . .

"is a serious curtailment of the power " of the people to control the granting "of licenses." It is no curtailment at all, as every member of the House knows who has thought about the matter for ten minutes, and the other reasons given, though they were not so absurd, were not of much more use as arguments. It is no less foolish to say that " there has been no expression " of public opinion" in favour of something yiore than a bare majority than it would be to say that there has been such an expression in favour of granting Prohibition on the vote of one elector. The question has not been submitted to the public recently, formally or informally, and the House knows very well that if it had been submitted before the present session the answer given would have meant nothing now. gut it must be said also that

the Council's reasons for Its amendments, though they had far more force than the reasons given against them by the House of Representatives, fell a good deal short of the best reasons. For example, the majority proposed by the Council is not a "reasonable substitution for the issue of State Con"trol," nor should the Council have said that "whichever party succeeds " on the two issues . . . should have a "longer interval than the present law " allows from disturbance of its posi- " tion." Laws should not be passed to suit this party or that, or be subject to repeal by this party or that at three or six or any interval of years. They should be passed for the good, and. especially (in such a case) for the protection, of the whole community from tyranny, injustice, and bigotry, and it is surprising that the Council should have permitted itself to suggest anything else.