ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 3275, 19 August 1873, Page 3

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

MR FOX AND HIS LICENSING BILL,

We make the following extracts from MiFox’s speech in moving the second reading of the Licensing Bill:—I will draw the attention of the House to one of the consequences of drink, because it has a bearing on the position of the country at the present moment. It is a horrible fact to have to record, but it is sup ported by the best calculations which I have been able to make, and I am satisfied that if I were to go through these calculations, I would carry conviction to the minds of all who hear me —that not fewer than 500 persons die in this Colony every year from the excessive quantity of intoxicating drink which they consume. Viewing this with a regard to the immigration question, it is a pecuniary loss of no less than L 50,000 to the Colony each year. We are borrowing large sums of money, and are incurring gigantic liabilities, for the purpose of introduc ing immigrants into this Colony, and every one of the 500 who die has to be replaced by another from Home. The very passage money and expenses of these 500 amount to LIO,OUO a year, and if we take the value of eacli immigrant at that placed by the Crown on each soldier in the British army (L 100), we have a total of L 50,000, which is a loss the Colony suffers every year by the death of drunkards ; and that money might be as well thrown into the sea. LIO,OOO of our immigration fund is absolutely wasted every year by the death of those SUO men through drink, and they have to be replaced by 500 sound and sober men at the cost of the Colony. Those who tell the public of those things are called fanatics, are thought little bettor than fools, and the whole thing is laughed down. I would not have referred to this part of the subject did 1 not think it desirable to call the attention of the country to it in connection with the peculiar position in which we now stand with reference to immigration ; we arc bringing people out here at an enormous cost, and by our licensing laws we hurry an immense number to an early grave, to make room for those who come out in their places. . . I will indicate the only point on which I have altered the measure from that of last year, and I will trouble the House with a few arguments by way of anticipatory reply to those which I know by experience are as certain as I stand here to bo offered against the measure, for there are persons in this world, who, if you answer them a thousand times, if you bray them in a mortar, come forward again with the same stock arguments, expecting that the answers which they received had been forgotten. I shall, reply to those arguments which I know will be advanced against the measure, and I will then leave it to the tender mercies of the House to accept or reject my Bill. The Bill may be said to stand upon two legs : one is good flesh and blood —an active, vigorous leg that might be relied on either for standing or going : that is the permissive regulations—the only leg I care for in the Bill. The other I look upon as a wooden leg of very little value, except as a prop to support an otherwise falling body : this is the licensing part of the Bill, and all those portions of the Bill relating to licensing which provide regulations for the sale of drink, inspection by police, adulteration, and so forth—l look upon as the wooden leg, and I do not cave much for them ; but the other, which would do away with license and all its evils, 1 regard as the living leg upon which any true reform must stand. I will call the attention of the House to two points only of the wooden leg. The first is one on which, I believe, there is very great unanimity of opinion, with respect to which I met with very considerable support last year ; and I have every reason to believe that the feeling in favor of reform in this respect is now more general than it was then ; I mean the issue of licenses, Hon. members are aware that in this Colony licenses are issued by Justices of the Peace, and they have the whole power of doing so, except in some cases in the bush. The issue of licenses has been vested in the ordinary Justices of the Peace and any Resident Magistrate who may chance to sit with them. I think that the general opinion of the public is that the state in which we have got the drinking question by the broadcast manner in which public-houses have been scattered over the country, is sufficient to prove that the ordinary Bench of Justices is not the proper authority by which licenses for the sale of drink should be issued. The hon. gentleman at the head of the Government expressed his full appreciation of that view, and his readiness to support me in arriving at some change of system. Last year I proposed that the ordinary Justices should be replaced by the Resident Magistrate, but the Premier proposes to substitute for them paid Commissioners, whose duty it will be, not only to issue licenses, but to inspect and control public houses. Since the lion, member made that proposal, I have given it earnest consideration. I am sorry to say I aip not prepared to acquiesce in it. The main reason why the ordinary Justiccs of the Peace fail in the fulfilment of their duties is owing to a great extent to the fact that they are guided by influences —I do not say corrupt influences—in consequence of being geographically and socially too near to publicans, which makes them unwilling on licensing-day to refuse to grant a license, and they cannot bring their minds to the committal of the courageous act of taking one away. The general feeling is that the Justices are too lenient in the matter, and owing to that they have scattered broadcast over this country public-hou.sgs in a manner tfiat has caused frightful drunkenness. The president Magistrates are certainly further removed from the publicans, but I have not observed that they really are any great improvement on the ordinary Justices ; and iu my own district I have known one grant a license where the ordinary Bench had refused it over and oyer again. It is true that tli e Commissioners suggested by the Premier would be a little better than the Resident Magistrate ; but though they would bo farther removed from local influence, they would have much less local knowledge. If the Commissioners were public officers, and under the control of the Government, they might exercise greater vigilance than is now exhibited, for they would always be responsible to the Government; but I fear they would hud the publicans very much more than a match for them. We have seen police standing at the very doors of these great public-houses which commit offences against the law; but they flourish, and we «lu not hear once in twelve months of a policeman laying an information, and bringing a publican to justice. The appointment of a peripatetic Commissioner for the purpose of regulating the management of public houses, would be attended with little or no benefit. I propose, iu lieu of the present Justices, to adopt a suggestion which was made by Sir Robert Anstruther, in a Bill which lie introduced into the Imperial Parliament last year, and which has been much discussed at Home, it being highly thought of by Lord Grey, and which L think will have a hotter chance of working well than any other. It is to put the power of issuing licenses, while they have to be granted, in the hands of the people,

exactly in the same manner as you put into their hands the power of managing their own roads and conducting the education of the young in their own particular districts. I would have elected bodies to whom should be given the whole power of doing that which the Magistrates now do. It will be seen by the Bill that the Government have power to appoint certain districts within which a Board would be created by a machinery almost identical with that of the Wellington Highway Boards Act. Hut there is another toe to the wooden j e g- —another of those portions of the Bill which I value very little, because I do not believe they w iU ever reform the drinking system. Ido not believe that the surveillance of the police or any other system of regulation will ever reform the drinking habits of the people. The bon. gentleman at the head of the Government alluded to it, and expressed his intention to give me his most cordial and entire support in working out that portion of what he conceived to lie my pet measure, and that was the adulteration portion. Now, as regards the adulteration portion 1 will, perhaps, astonish hon. members very greatly when I say that it is a thing I do not care one rush about. lam not here in the character of a total abstainer—l am here in the character of a legislator. The adulteration of drink is a thing that no total abstainer cares anything about, because how can that drink which is adulterated hurt any of us when wo never use any of it ? adulterous compounds are put into all the liquor sold in the place, it ,is nothing to us, for the simple reason that we never use any of it. But we do think it rather hard that we sober people should be called upon to contribute to the expense of maintaining police organisation or an analytical department, in order that those who like good liquors may be able to get them without being put to the trouble of testing them for themselves. If a man does not care to (take poison, he surely should test the liquor himself. I should

think most people can tell whether there is coculus indicus or copperas in their beer or not, and if they cannot why that is their own affair. I do not know why we should be called upon to remedy-the evil for them. However, total abstainers can afford to be a little liberal, and I dare say they will not object to assist those who drink in getting liquor which will not poison them. Not that I believe that much of the evil effects of drinking is attributable to the use of coculus or any other article of adulteration, because the harm it does is quite insignificant compared with the mischievous effects of alcohol. Did coculus ever send a man home to beat his wife, or prevent him sending his children to school? Did any wretchedness of that sort ever originate in this adulteration ? It is the alcohol that does the mischief. I believe the effect of adulteration is quite the other way. If you can prevent anyone poisoning the coculus indicus, or prevent mixing beer with it, then a very great good will be effected; because it is only when they arc dressed up in the garb of alcohol that these noxious articles effect such grievous injuries upon humanity. Still, we must accept the fact that adulteration is very extensively earned on, and I do not believe that any system of police regulation, or any amount of analysis, will remedy the evil. ... I will uow'proceed to touch upon what I call the living leg —the permissive prohibitory portion. With regard to the Bill generally, I will make this preliminary observation : that the great issue between the two classes of reformers—the two classes who professedly aim at a reform of the drinking habits of the country—is whether the reform is to be effected by means of licensing regulation and police interference or whether the only efficient method of putting an end to the drinking habits of the people—to the frightful march of intemperance—is not to be found in absolute prohibition. When I say absolute prohibition, I do not mean that the State should enact a prohibitory law without consulting the feelings of the people in the matter ; but I say this : that the power of veto ought to be left in the hands of the people, so that the inhabitants of any district should have tlie option of saying whether or not the traffic in liquor should be carried on there. Now, sir, as regards the question at issue between those two sections of reformer's, I may ; at once say that those who believe the prohibitory to be the only means of remedying the evi’, look upon the best possible licensing system as a failure. . . We say, “ Leave the power to prohibit the traffic in drink to the people,’” or I should say to the residents of every district —the adult male and female residents, for the females are equally entitled to the privilege of exercising such political and social rights, we say give them the power to say by way of. veto, “There shall not be alcoholic liquors sold in this district.” We do not even wish to put the power into the Licensing Board proposed to be constituted under the Bill; what we -ask is that the people themselves, by a direct vote, and they only, shall have the right to say whether public-houses shall be placed in their midst. That is our proposal.