LICENSING LAWS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 152, 23 March 1939, Page 11

LICENSING LAWS

Women Ask For Stricter Enforcement SALE OF LIQUOR AFTER LEGAL HOURS Administration Defended By Minister Stricter enforcement of the licensing laws was advocated by a deputation representing the New Zealand Women’s Christian Temperance Union which waited upon the Minister in Charge of the Police Department, Mr. Fraser, yesterday. The union is holding its annual conference in Wellington, and the deputation comprised about 130 women, representing branches of the union from Whangarei to Invercargill. The Minister said the licensing laws had never been more thoroughly and more efficiently enforced than at present. The breaker of the licensing laws had no more reason or justification for expecting immunity from the consequences of his actions than the breaker of any other laws.

The Commissioner of Police, Mr. D. J. Cummings, and the Director of Education, Mr. N. T. Lambourne, were present.

The deputation was introduced by Mrs. Stewart, M.P. for Wellington West, She said the deputation represented a band of women who realized fully the necessity for evolving a plan t<> protect the people, specially young people, from the detrimental effects of the liquor traffic. . The National President of the union, Mrs. J. Hiett, said that the deputation represented between 6000 and 7000 women, all pledged to abstain from intoxicants because they knew that beverage alcohol was one of the most degrading instruments in our .social life.

“We are urgent in our request for the enforcement of the liquor law in regard to after-hour and Sunday trading,” said Mrs. Hiett. “One of the most distressful phases of after-hour trading Is that many of the patrons are young people of both sexes. We are dismayed to think that these girls and young men are the future mothers and fathers of the race, and that alcohol drunk by potential parents brings degenerate children into the world.” Drinking On Trains. Mrs. Hiett stressed the undesirable practice of drinking on trains, specially excursion trains. The deputation, she said, felt that it was more than high time that some steps were taken to prevent decent people from having to put up with intoxicated fellow-travellers. She commended the physical fitness campaign, but asked what could be more harmful to the physical fitness of men and women than drinking far into the night as was done in many licensed hotels. Many men spent hours on a Sunday in drinking on licensed premises. The deputation had ample proof of these facts, and it was asked that illegal trading be stopped. No-Licence Areas. In no-licence districts the law was flouted, and the Maori race was being exploited by the trade in the King Country. Ever since the solemn pact being entered into in 1884 to keep liquor out of the King Country there had been a constant disregard of the law by the liquor trade. The vice-president of the union, Mrs. Hugh Paterson, sai'd the union was concerned regarding certain alcoholic liquor advertisements, and objected to claims made by the advertisers that their product had certain beneficial medicinal effects.

Replying, Mr. Fraser said that the size of the deputation was a sign of healthy activity on the part of the organization, and an indication that it was alive to the necessity for the law being enforced. The representations in regal'd to the further and more intensive enforcement of the ilnw would receive the earnest consideration of himself and the Commissioner of Police. There was never a commissioner more concerned and more anxious to enforce the laws of the country than Mr. Cummings. The licensing laws had never been more thoroughly and more efficiently enforced than by the present commissioner. That spirit permeated the whole of the police force. Flagrant Breaches. There had -been flagrant and open breaches in regard to Sunday and af-ter-hour drinking. The police ha'd been very active in an endeavour to eliminate these breaches, and would continue to be so. Reports received indicated a considerable improvement in a number of districts.

The police, said Mr. Fraser, had been very active in the King Country. It was most difficult for the most vigilant and most efficient force to obtain 100 per cent results when citizens who were most punctilious in regard to the ordinary co'de of citizenship had no qualms about violating licensing laws in dry areas. Women Police. Drinking on trains had been taken up by the commissioner with the Railways Department some time ago, but up to the present no particular result had been obtained. The commissioner would continue to press the position, and he himself would bring the matter before the Minister of Railways. Mr. Fraser said he would not build up too great hopes about what women could do to supplement the men police in the administration of the licensing laws, except in a limited way. - Drinking after hours was to be deplored. The bars and lounges of the most palatial hotel or of the most obscure hotel in a side street were under tho same survey by the police and no discrimination was shown.

If the Government set out to deal with the accuracy arid authenticity of advertisements, liquor advertisements would be only the f ringe of the problem. He would look into the matter, but exaggeration and the claiming of properties goods di'd not possess were not confined to the vendors of alcoholic liquors. As Minister of Education, it was his duty to encourage the teaching of temperance from a scientific point of view in the schools. Children and adults should have a full knowledge of the ingredients of foods and liquors, lie had asked the Education 'Department to continue and if possible intensify that instruction in schools.