The Globe. THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 921, 7 June 1877, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1877.

The people of Dunedin are evidently beginning to take a deep interest in the liquor question. We have before us a report of a public meeting held in that city on Tuesday evening last, at which fully seven hundred people were present. The speeches delivered on the occasion are a vast improvement upon those usually given at such gatherings. There was less declamation and more argument. All, we suppose, are agreed on one point — viz., that intemperance is a great evil, perhaps the greatest with which we in these colonies have to contend. It is also generally admitted that no system of licensing laws has yet been effective to prevent those evils. But when we come to consider what remedy should bo provided, we meet with difficulties on every hand. That all agree that some restrictive legislation is necessary, is proved by the fact that the licensing laws have always imposed restriction on the traffic. It is upon its nature and extent that a difference of opinion arises. There are those who, impressed with the enormous evils of the liquor traffic, advocate the entire closing of the public houses by law; there are others, less extreme in their views, who would be content with placing the power in the hands of a majority of the ratepayers of a district, while a large section of the community is represented by those who are opposed to such restriction, or have no very decided views on the question. Now it may be perfectly true that intemperance is a great evil, and that it; is the direct cause of crime and misery of all kinds. It is undisputed thai the money spent on it in New Zealand alone would pay the interest on our loans, pay the cost of our educational institutions, and still leave a balance to the good. But it does not follow that it is the duty of the State to close all the public houses in the colony. The result of such step, were it possible

to take it, would, wo are afraid, be the creation of greater evils than it proposed to remedy. As long as the tastes of the people remain as they are at present drink will bo supplied to them, only were the public houses closed, it would be by illegal vendors. Experience elsewhere is opposed to such total restriction, as it lias been found that the law is systematically broken; and, as a consequence, the community is demoralised. If it could be shown that such au Act would do the good claimed for it by its advocates, opposition to it would disappear. We have no sympathy with those who cry out against such a measure as unfair, because it would interfere with the liberty of the subject. All laws are an interference with the liberty of the subject, and the minority must give way to the majority. The present licensing Act interferes with the freedom of the subject. The question which has to be solved is, how far the State can interfere with advantage to the great hody of the community. But we quite agree with the resolution passed by the Dunedin meeting, that no system of licensing laws has yet been effective for the prevention of the evils to prevent which they wore enacted. We propose to deal with the Local Option 'Bill in a future issue.