THE NEW LICENSING BILL.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 52, 30 July 1874, Page 2

THE NEW LICENSING BILL.

To the Editor of the Olohe. SIRIn the “ Press ” leader of this morning its readers are favored with some remarks on the new Fencing Bill which has passed its second reading in the General Assembly. Whilst agreeing with the writer in the most of the points he has noticed in connection with the Bill, 1 should like to offer ar few comments on one or two clauses which I think may very fairly be altered in committee The first clause which I shall notice is the 9th, which alters the previous Act and gives a publican the right of having more than one bar in his liceiiscd house, but at rather a heavy expenditure, as a publican

holding a £3O or hotel license if he has three bars in his house would have to pay the sum of £SO altogether for his license, which I am afraid would not pay in the present state of traded It seems to me, sir, that the legislature does not sufficiently understand the nature of a good Hotel, it does not seem to rember that a very great outlay has first to he incurred, in order that the Hotel may he made suitable to the convenience of all classes of the public, and that it takes a large expenditure to keep it going, or it; would never attempt to place a taproom on the same footing as a commercial hotel of the first class. I may state that if the Legislature intends to keep up the character of the hotelkeepers in the colony, as I conceive that they wish to do, they are going the wrong way to work. They are so crabbing the energies of any hotelkeeper who tries to make his house respectable and adapted for the accommodation of the public, that I am almost certain if the Legislature keeps continually altering the laws, ns they are doing now, all the respectable hotelkeepers will be only too glad t 6 retire into some other line of business where they will not be hampered with so many laws: I maintain, sir, that there are at least two bars necessary in a hotel, not to facilitate drinking, but to accommodate the public, and that the public will not be accommodated at one bar ; that the principle of forcing the two classes to mix with each other would ruin the character of the house for the custom of one class or the other, and that it is unjust to increase the tax upon publicans who are already very heavily burdened in that respect; 'I should next like to notice the 17fh clause of the Act, ■Which provides for bottle licenses. I think sir, it will be found that the facilities given this Act for granting bottle licenses, the fee payable being only £lO. and no certificate required from householders will go far to increase drinking habits; And I think it will also be found, sir, that more mischief will be done by this system than the fact of a publican having more than one bar. I may be wrong, but time will shew if the clauses I have alluded to are passed without alteration. By your permission, I shall notice one or tw» other points in the Act in a future letter. Trusting that you will insert this in your paper, ;I; I am, Your obedient Servant, John William Oram, City Hotel, ~29th July, 1874.