OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3572, 4 August 1874, Page 2

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

July 25 The Licensijjg’JJill came;on for its second reading on Friday evening, after the Public Works Statement was delivered. M r Fox was in his element, and certainly spoke veiy vigorously—of course opinion is divided upon the character of his speech. Teetotallers say he never spoke better or more to the purpose ; these who are temperate declare they never beard anything more fanatical. As it, will be some days before ‘Hansard’ will reach you, I have taken the trouble to transcribe my notes of the debate. After Mr Vogel sat down, Mr Fox rose and delivered himself thus:—

He would not oppose the second reading, reserving his remarks upon the clauses in detail until the Bill was committed, but he would like to point out some reasons why the Bill of last session had seemed inefficacious. The Act which he bad proposed contained a provision which threw the responsibility upon the magistrates of collecting the votes of the people on the subject of liquor traffic, and if that provision were acted upon gradually by the education of the people in temperance principles the Act would be brought into operation, and give the people their right to control the liquor traffic. They were going to give all but manhood suffrage—(cries of “ No”)—and yet they were not trusted to say whether there should be public houses in the district, which was the whole difference between his and the Government measure, as the 18th clause showed. He would do his best to defeat that clause. The Premier ■ had dilated upon the necessity of good accomI mqdation houses, and inferred that if the prohij biting clauses were carried out these houses ) would not exist. But the experience of Maine | «md other American States showed that such a prohibitory law could be set in operation with- | out any inconvenience arising ui the matter of accommodation or anything else. Coming to the present Bill, all would recognise the fact that there were many clauses which should not pass the House. In the first place, all Acts passed by Provincial Councils were to be left to their operation, if not inconsistent with the present Act; and, further on, power was given to the Minister of Public Works to issue licenses for refreshment-rooms on railways. He would seriously call attention to the fact that the directors of the Caledonian and other large British and American railway companies had forbidden the sale of all intoxicating liquors at their termini, urging that many of the terrible accidents arose from this cause. Should not the New Zealand Government act in the same way ? At any rate, the power of granting the licenses should be absolutely in the hands of the Minister, and not only under his approval. Ho would propose additional clauses to the

Bill in the form of amendments, one of which should be that women memorialists need only say that their age was over twenty-one, ami another, in view of a late case at Wanganui that every adjunct of an hotel, such as billiard rooms, should be closed at the hour fixed by law ; nay, he would go further, and get rid, if he could, of all billiard rooms attached to hotels as they were a snare to the worse sin of drinking. Another of the adjuncts of hotels was barmaids. He would try to carry a clause prohibiting the employment of barmaids in any part of an hotel for the distribution of liquor unless they exceeded the ago of thirty years, luehon. member for Waikaia bad introduced •fi esslon ’ k' s honor and everlasting credit, a Bill regulating female labor. He (Mr Fox) would like to make that Bill applicable to barmaids. He would call upon the House to aid mm m striving to effect a reformation in the drinking habits of ihe day. Mr Fox has a particular aversion to the clause in the Bill which permits licenses to be renewed withput personal application, and' is particularly wrathful about the eni-

ployment of barmaids No young girl or pretty face shall be allowed behind a bar if ie can help it; only plain maidens, beyond and nearer forty, if they can be got. But Mr Fox did not see how bo contradicted , l ™ 8e “ i Q the next breath It was impossible to get women to give their correct age ; not even good Tcmplarcsses. who, with the vanity of their sex, preferred to forego them principled rather than state their ages. Jf he cannot get the institution of barmaids abolished, Mr Fox will try to limit their hours of labor to forty-eight in the week. He declared in the House that it was not an uncommon thing for girls to have to go into a bar at eight one morning, and remain there till two next! How does he know • is he going against the first principle of law : that hearsay-evidence is no evidence at all? Mr Vogel was more than a match for the member for Raugitikei, and turned the laugh against that gentleman when he asked if he spoke of barmaids from practical experience of them. Ye fair Hebes, who, according 10 Mr Fox, are bartering yonr souls, must remember when the electoral franchise is extended to yonr sex, that Mr Vogel championed you in a manner (hat would hare extorted the admiration of Don Quixote. The following is but a bare outline of Mr Vogel’s speech : Mr Vogel regretted exceedingly that the debate had been conducted to such an extent outside the Act. He was sensible that many points that had been advanced required a few words from him. One of these was that every person in the community should have the power of voting as to whether a certain house should be closed, to which possibly some objections might be raised by a few ratepayers. Then they had the question of female franchise. It had been urged that refreshments should not be sold at railway stations, and he asked the hon. member who brought this proposition forward whether it did not look very much like tyranny, instead ot the freedom of which he bad spoken. Why, in tho name of common sense, he asked, should they endeavor to refuse to those who travelled ou the lines of railway of the Colony what they required in the shape of refreshments ? Why should they be told they should not have what they had been used to perhaps for years—a stimulant—when the train in which they travelled stopped. For his part he could sot see why. But supposing that the refreshment rooms were closed, the result would be that instead of drinking glasses, they would drink bot ties.—(Hear.) As to the question of barmaids, he presumed the hon. member for Kangitikei had had practical experience on tho subject—(Loud laughter.) As far as he (Mr

Vogel) knew ef them, they were a very deserving class of young women, many of whom supported their fathers and mothers out of them earnings. With regard to the 18th clause, which aimed at preventing the necessity of publicans attending a Licensing Court, in the event of no opposition being made to the issue of his license, he could only say that the Government had put in this provision in order to give some favor to a class of persons who were both hardworking and respectable.—(Hear.) As to the Licensing Commissioners, they had appointed to 300 districts 1,200 licensing Commissioners, because they wore not of opinion, that the onus of decision should be thrown on the Resident Magistrates. That opinion he could see no reason to alter. He would say this: if hon. members or others outside the Rouse could bring forward any measure which would deal with the crime of drunkenness, the Government would be prepared to deal with it. If he saw his way to do it, he would make very stringent laws on that subject. For instance, if a man were wasting his substance in riotous living lie would, if it were possible, see that the whole of his property was given into the custody of his wife, and that, if necessary, he was incarcerated in an asylum until such time as there was reason to believe that he had sufficiently recovered from his mania. But he believed that out of every hundred persons who landed m the Colony there were not five who could be fairly termed habitual drunkards. He House would be convinced that the Government had been justified in dealing with the matter on a moderate basis, and that they had avoided all extreme doctrines. He could not see why people should be given irregular power more under this Act than any other. ■ the other speakers were Sir Cracroft Wilson, who complained tbat incompetent per* sons were placed ©n the Licensing Benches, instancing a case iii his Province where an hotel was licensed within a hundred yards of a lunatic asylum ; Mr J. E. Brown who followed in the same strain, saying that Kesidenfc Magistrates should not sit on Licen* sing Benches; and Mr Cuthbtrtson, who views the Bill as any Good Templar would, and will oppose it tooth and nail. The Bill is to be committed on Wednesday, when Mr Fox, Mr Cuthbertson, and Mr Brown will endeavor to alter it very materially, but I don t think with success. There is a considerable difficulty experienced here in obtaining reliable information. Being at the seat of Government, one would

scarcely iraagiue such to be the case : but it is, nevertheless, painfully true. In the first place you caunot hear in the House. Members are chary of giving Press people any information whatever. The Press Agency gather nearly all that is to be got, and in an uneventful session like the present one, anytmng piquant or interesting is hard to be obtained. But yet important secrets at times crop out. Sometimes affairs only known it would be [imagined, in Cabinet! appear m the public' prints, such as the Ward telegram and other telec secret 3, and then the knowledge of the existence of the La Hogue despatches. Ihere is a pLoa of leakage somewhere, and the sooner it is found out the better. Besides these difficulties, however, au ordinary correspondent labors under other disadvantages. Thareis a considerable sprinkling of editorial talent, and people connected wth newspapers, in the House of Representatives,

with winch outsiders cannot compete, ihey hear the earliest rumors in Bellamy’s, to which only Brahmins of the first-class have an entrde ; know when caucuses take place, who are there, and what each man says ; what transpires in committee robins, and the xuturo fate of the question urider consideration; can inspect or copy State documents that are laid on the tabfe of the House, and not printed, and are well snp. plied with all the printed papers in their pigeon holes. We are supposed to have theffi [ n .boxes as well as members, blit the distribution 13 under the control of an “W,* BUp2lcilioUß specimen of the p.eudo-eivil service, who varies his ocoupation bj sometimes getting tight for two or three days, aud allow the papers to look after themselves. Probably m the whole tw h<? 1 rov , inc,al Councils in the Colony there is no place where reporters have such bad accommodation aud scurvy treatment as in the hmpire Uty. In years past the Independent forecasted coming events • could lead public opinion is some divine Cabinet intentions, and was, ou the e ’ rf n , m3 P ire .d semi-official paper. The Row Zealand Times ’ is a paper of a different complexion. It goes in for writing essays instead of leaders, has very often eight or more pages of reprint, aud generally has fifty per cent, of its locals on matters pertaining to Parliament that appear in "Ct;™ 1 t Llfi . <fn the member for the DimaSS.’"2,““S uce » Bai -mead the Geld, to make better 'prorieionTor’tb^n'' Staif rit “ a “ a ir b? iect OU th0 ar hnn qUahf li d with the sull COB W “ worthy You know Mr Macandrew earned hi. point about exempting firemen from

on juries against the Government, who wanted to delay the natter for twelve months. As no good report of the discussion has yet appeared—that in the * N Z. Times ’ being “ confnsun worse confou-ded,” by reason of the members’ remarks getting inexplicably mixed up with the observe lion* made by Mr Wales—T should advbe you, if you can find room, to reprint the ‘ Hansard’s’ report of it.