The Feilding Stat, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1896. PROHIBITION ORDERS.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 245, 21 April 1896, Page 2

The Feilding Stat, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1896. PROHIBITION ORDERS.

— -o The decision given by the Stipendiary Magistrate at the last sittings of the Court, held in Feilding, to the effect that a Prohibition order signed by Justices of the Peace was now invalid, has excited some comment in other parts of the colony. Our contemporary, the Ashburton Guardian considers that if the impression which now exists is a correct one that, under the . Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act Am end men t Act ot last year, all proceedings under the Licensing laws must necessarily be taken before a Stipendiary Magistrate, much unnecessary delay would ofctea occur. There are many districts which are only visited by the S.M. once a fortnight, and there are many others to which such an officer never approaches nearer than twenty or thirty miles, so that to insist upon all such applications being determined by a Stipendiary Magistrate would mean a great inconvenience, and no small amount of additional expense, to persons interested. Under these circuaistances, we have consulted the Act, and are of opinion there is nothing to prevent a Prohibition order being made by any two Justices of the Peace sitting in open Court, as provided by section 167 of the Licensing Act, 1881. It is true that section 34 of the Alcoholic Liquors Lale Control Act, 1895, provides that "all prosecutions for breach of any of the provisions of the Licensing Acts shall be heard and determined by a Stipendiary Magistrate alone," but that provision does not extend to an application for a prohibition order, which i» not * prosecu tion, . any more than the act of the excessive drinker is a breach of any part of the; Licensing law. There is neither in the section quoted, nor in any part of! the-Acts passed subsequently to the Licensing Act of 1881, ajiy i-epeai; (eixpriess or implied, of the provisions of section 167 of thai Act, and it therefore appears to us clear vthat ]i P^dHilnticw orders can still be, applied f^irj betbrei: i;beneh oi^»ke Jußtwe^ a^

fully made. Tbe point is one of considerable importance, and, if there be any doubt whatever about it in official circles, that doubt should be cleared up without any delay.