The Evening Star MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4303, 11 December 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1876.

The Licensing Commissioners, if called upon to do so, would find it difficult to justify their conduct in refusing all the applications for new hotel licenses, except one, made to them last Tuesday, The prime motive which actuated them seems to have been their own sweet wills, which are their usual guides on these occasions. Not very long ago they laid down the principle—and a very good principle too-that they would discourage the erection of houses built mainly for the purpose of a bar trade, and would offer every encouragement to publicans to erect roomy hotels with ample lodging accommodation. But how did they apply this principle on Tuesday ? At a cost of £3,000 a fine building, with plenty of room for boarders, is put up at Ravensbourne, a township on the Port Chalmers Railway, where no hotel exists ; the proprietor asks for a license; nobody objects or hints that he is an unsuitable person, but the license is peremptorily refused—the applicant being told, in effect, that his house is too good for a mere beershop, and, with something remarkably like a bit of sarcasm, is recommended to use it for a boarding establishment. Then it is a clear principle of the Licensing Act, which the Court is supposed to administer, that the wishes of the residents in the locality shall be considered by the Court when dealing with an application for an hotel license; in fact, two-thirds of the inhabitants have the power of preventing any license being issued at all; and it is open to every householder to appear before the Court in person and make objections. The Dunedin Commissioners practically ignore this important feature of the statute. A petition, signed by the Mayor and some of the Councillors of South Dunedin, with other persons, was presented to the Court, asking that a license might he granted for a new hotel on the line of the Ocean Beach Railway; on the ground that the hotel would be useful to visitors to the Ocean Beach. No counter memorial was proffered ; neither the house nor its proprietor was objected to, yet the license was summarily refused. In mentioning tL se two cases we are not, of course, advocating the claims of tha particular applicants (which it would be quite beyond our jurisdiction to do), or arguing that they were stronger than those of the other persons who were refused licenses on Tuesday; we cite them only by way of illustration of the unreasonableness of the action of the Court. Something w r as, indeed, said uy the Chairman to the effect that tho Board would not grant any new license unless it could be shown that the house was required for public convenience. We are aware, too, that the Lic r ■ : .ng Act gives the Court a full discretion in dealing v/ich applications and power to refuse a license, even where tho provisions of the law as to accommodation and the personal fitness of the applicant have been complied tvith, if the house is not needed. This discretion, however, should not be exercised despotically, but in accordance with tiio spirit of the Act. The clause conferring discretion must be read with the context. A Licensing Court is not entitled to follow its own whims and fancies in deciding when a house is “ necessaTy.” By what train of reasoning do tho members of the Danediu Court arrive at the conclusion that the wants of a particular locality are i-atiofied in the matter of publichooses ? D'o they allow So much liquor pdr head of population ? or do they say that

betels shall not be within a certain distance from each other ? If they go upon these or round • they would fil'd it hard j : . :q.v;tiu why so many iicevscd houses now : . .;a Dunedin. Probably half-a-doaeu ! wouldsufficefortheactual wants of the public. No doubtincountry places, aud under special csrciun-dances, it could be seen at a glance that a new house would be one too many; but in a populous district like that over which the Dunedin Commissioners preside, the number of hotels must, to a great extent, be I left to be regulated by business competition, and the real function of the Licensing Court is to see that proper accommodation ia provided, and that the entrusted to suitable persons. It seems idle to enunciate such an obvious truth as that the duty of the Commissioners is to administer the law and not to make it. Doubtless the question is open to argument, whether or not the sale of intoxicating liquors should be permitted at all. Then if that question be answered in the affirmative, the further questions arise as to whether the sale should be subject to restrictions, and if so, to what extent ? But with all such problems the Court has nothing whatever to do. It has simply to follow the plain policy of the law, and ought not to use its discretion so as to indirectly contravene the purposes of the statute. Let us see to what the action of the Dunedin Court woqld lead. It says that if a house is not “necessary,” the landlord shall not receive a license, even though all the other requisite conditions be fulfilled. Now, it would be quite within the power of the Ministry, under the provisions of the Act, to appoint a Court composed solely of teetotallers holding strong views on their favorite topic. To these gentlemen publichouses might appear altogether superfluous, and they might even deem it a.moral duty to deprive the whole of the hotelkeepers in Dunedin of their licenses. No man in his senses would contend that a proceeding of that kind was warrantable ; and yet it is a logical deduction from the argument used by the Court. A hardship, too, is likewise inflicted upon individuals, and a serious check given to business enterprise. There is no means of ascertaining beforehand what view the Court will take of a particular application, and if it insists upon using its arbitrary discretion in every case that comes before it, men will not spend thousands of pounds in erecting substantial buildings on the mere chance of getting licenses for them when they are completed; the result of which policy will be, not the checking of drunkenness, but the conferring of a monopoly upon certain hotelkeepers, and the creation of a swarm of sly grog shops in those localities where new licenses have been refused. The Court is bound to administer the law as it finds it; and if each Court claims the right to modify the law as it pleases, instead of having one licensing law in the Colony we shall have fifty. The Dunedin Court has more than once shown a desire to increase its authority unduly. Some time ago, if we remember aright, it warned a respectable woman, who kept an hotel for a livelihood, that unless she got married in the meantime, her license would probably not he renewed at the next meeting—a warning utterly without legal justification. Ex uno disce omnes. These Courts want their wings clipped and their duties to be clearly defined, so that, while the undue multiplication of public-houses is prevented, applicants may know that if they fulfil specific conditions there is a reasonable certainty of obtaining a license.