The Globe. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 972, 7 August 1877, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1877.

We have already expressed an opinion favourable to the principles of the Local Option Bill, as explained to us at a public meeting in the Oddfellows’ Hall. We have now before us the Bill in the form in which it has been introduced into the Assembly by the Hon. W. Box. Wo are sorry to say we arc greatly disappointed with it. The Jirst objection we have to take to it is with reference to the si/.e of the sub-districts into which the Licensing districts can be divided. The Bill provides that twenty or more adult persons, male or female, residing within any licensing district may require the Chairman of the Licensing Court to declare a sub-district. The Chairman shall forthwith do so, and by advertisement define its boundaries, and fix a day on which all the residents, male and female over twenty-one, in such suhdistrict shall record their votes for or against public-houses. The area of sub-districts in municipalities shall include all bona fulo inhabitants who reside, and who shall have resided for one month next previous, within a radius of one hundred yards from the centre of the district. If beyond the limit of a municipality the radius of the sub-district shall he two miles, measured from the centre. The centre of a sub-district we may add, is a house licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors, or for which a license, renewal, or transfer of a license to sell intoxicating liquors, shall he applied for. If there hemore than one such house in proximity to each other, then the chairman shall fix some intermediate point which shall he the centre of the district. In our opinion the proposed area of the districts is far too small. It places it in the power of the inhabitants of a very small locality to close a publichouse, without the chance of any benefit to the community resulting. It would give an opportunity to a very small section of the inhabitants of a district to exercise petty tyranny oyer any licensed house in their immediate vicinity. The object of the Bill is, we suppose, to put down the vice of intemperance in our midst. If such is the case, the machinery provided will fail to do so. The closing of or two public-houses will have little effect in that direction, so long as others are allowed to flourish —just one hundred yards off. The majority of the entire adult population of a licensing district must he in favour of tho closing of public-houses before any practical good will follow. To place it in the power of the inhabitants residing within _ a small corner of it to close a publichouse, is to open the door for the exercise of persecution. We were told by Mr. -Stout that the Local Option Bill did more justice to the publicans than the present Licensing Act, which provides for individual houses being proceeded against Mr. Box’s Bill cannot bo so regarded. It not only perpetuates this evil, hut intensifies it. Clause 22 specially provides that in cases where subdistrict* have not been constituted, or in any sub-district in which a poll adverse to the introduction of the Act shall have been taken, or where no poll has been taken, any twenty persons resident within the distances already named may object to the granting, transfer, or renewal of a license to a particular house, and a poll of the inhabitants has to be taken, and if the majority are adverse, it lias to be refused. We are puzzled to find out on upon what principle the hundred yards radius has been fixed. Are the inhabitants of such a small area able to keep a public-house going ? We have great faith in the drinking capacity of a New Zealand community, but public-houses are not generally scattered quite so thickly as this Act implies. It is, therefore, unfair to place in tho bauds of what will, in many cases, be a very small number, the power of closing the pliolic-house -yf the district. Tho- majority of the the one hundred yards area might not be one-tenth of the population, for whose convenience the public-house was licensed. Wo therefore sincerely hope that the Bill will be entirely remodelled, and the area of the subdistricts greatly enlarged. If not, we venture to assert that of the two thousand signatures which have been appended to the petition just forwarded to ’ Wellington," two .thirds of them could be obtilMpd is OW OTWWBg MrI Pos’s ]3UI;