LIQUOR LEGISLATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 955, 30 July 1903, Page 2

LIQUOR LEGISLATION.

THE DEMANDS OP THE TRADE, NATIONAL OPTION BY THREEFIFTHS MAJORITY. MR SEDDON’S REPLY.

Per Press Association Wellington, last night. A deputation, representative of the liquor trade, and numbering between two and three hundred, waited on the Premier this afternoon. They urged that legislation be introduced this session to ameud the licensing laws in the following direction : —(a) National option in placo of any other form of option, to be taken once in each nine years, and to be carried by three-fifths of the number of persons on the roll; (b) the elimination of the reduction issue, and failing national option increasing the interval between the polls ; (c) payment of compensation ; (d) discretionary power to magistrates in the endorsement of licenses ; (a)* making eleven o’clock the statutory closing hour for the colony; (f) bringing clubs and railway refreshment rooms under the provisions of the licensing laws ; (g) providing that no lapsed licenses be revived for the purpose of removal; (h) making it penal for persons to have alcoholic liquor in their possession in prohibited districts; (i) substitu•ting a bench of Stipendiary Magistrates for the present elective committee, Tue deputation also protested against the provisions of sections 12 and 13 in the Shops and Offices Bill, 1903,

In replying, Mr Seddon said if any legislation were iutroduced, he would take it for granted that clubs would be brought under the Licensing Act. Ho was not in favor of curtailing the will of the people by fixing nine years for local option. He did not think there was the slightest chance of the Legislature altering the term from three years, or substituting national for local option, He believed, however, the feeling was growing throughout the colony that, at any rate for one general election, the people should have a rest on the local option point. With regard to compensation, he thought in cases in which the licensees had been ordered to rebuild, and shortly afterwards had lost their licenses, something should be done. He entirely agreed with discretionary powers being given to magistrates in regard to endorsements. If things remained as at present, and licensing committees pursued a non-judicial course as they had been doing in Dunedin, there would be revulsion of feeling against elective committees, and in favor of sole decision by a magistrate. He was of opinion that where ho-license was carried no liquor should be manufactured or sold or imported into that district. The whole of the matters brought under his notice would have the careful consideration of the Cabinet.