THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 1882. A HARD CASE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2491, 31 March 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 1882. A HARD CASE.

There can bo no doubt that the case of Messrs. Wilkin and Co., which was settled by the East Christchurch Licensing Committee on Tuesday last, is one of considerable hardship. Not that the Licensing Committee had any option in the matter, but the law, as it stands, bears hardly on wholesale traders situated as are Messrs. Wilkin and Co., and it can scarcely have been the intention of the Legislature that a wholesale firm should be debarred from obtaining a wholesale license because one of the firm acts as an auctioneer. The Legislature, however, is responsible for its own deeds, and if it allows errors of judgment, or faulty dicta arising from carelessness, to creep into its Acts, it must stand the brunt. The duty of Licensing Committees is plain enough. They have to administer the law as it stands, and cannot go behind the law in search of what the real intention of the Legislature may happen to have been. The clause in the Licensing Act bearing on the case in question runs as follows :—“ No license shall be granted, renewed, or transferred, as hereinafter mentioned to any person carrying on business as an auctioneer, or being in partnership with any one carrying on.

such business, or to any constable or bailiff : nor shall any license be granted, renewed, or transferred in respect of any house or premises of which any Bach person is owner, or wherein he is directly or indirectly interested.” Mr. Stringer, who conducted the case on behalf of Messrs. Wilkin and Co, argued that the clause was evidently intended to apply to a publican’s license, because a wholesale license was issued to an individual or firm, and not in respect of any “ house or promises.” If the Legislature had intended that no wholesale license should be granted to such a firm as Messrs. Wilkin, if any one of its members held an auctioneer’s license, they would have Aid so explicitly. Mr. Stringer argued that the latter portion of the section, in which the words “ house and premises” were used, qualified the meaning of the former part, and should be read in conjunction with it; and, moreover, that the words “ any constable or bailiff ” were taken from the Provincial Ordinance, and showed that the intention was to include only that class of persons and retail publicans. The Committee (this was on last Tuesday fortnight) showed themselves not at all averse to accepting this milder rendering of the Act provided a way could be shown them by which it could be done consistently with their duty to administer the Act as they found it, and they consequently proposed that the Attorney-General should be consulted. That functionary, however, the Government declare, cannot give advice on such a subject. The Licensing Committee, they say, is a body with judicial functions, and it is a well - established rule that judicial functionaries are not entitled to be advised by the Executive Government as to the performance of their duties. The Licensing Committee, it may be observed, have no funds out of which they can pay for legal advice, and consequently they delivered their opinion following out the strict interpretation of the Act. No doubt it was a hardship, as the Chairman of the Committee remarked, but there the law stood, and they were there to administer it. The supposition, indeed, of Mr. Stringer that the Legislature started with the preconceived idea that of course wholesale firms should bo allowed licenses, even if one of the firm was an auctioneer, and that if such licenses were not to bo granted they would have expressly stated so, is of course a very convenient way of looking at the matter from a certain point of view, but it is a view that could not apparently be adopted by a body of gentlemen appointed to administer the law according to the plain reading of the Act.

In the course of the discussion on this question, Mr. Stringer must have somewhat cursed hia fate. By a singular coincidence he was, wa believe, mainly instrumental in the introduction of the clause against which he had now to fight so vigorously, A case occurred on the Peninsula some little time back whore a certain publican, who was also an auctioneer, used to hold sales in front of his public house. The principal charm about these sales was that no commission was charged, the publican finding his profit in the thirstiness of the individuals attending the said sales. There was something wrong no doubt about this arrangement, however comfortably it may have been worked for buyers and sellers, and Mr. Stringer was the gentleman who called the attention of the powers that bo to the case. It was presumably to meet such a case that the portion of the 28th clause of the Act that|bore so hardly on Messrs. Wilkin and Co. was introduced. Mr. Stringer no doubt recalled to mind the fable of the eagle that was shot by an arrow winged with its own feather. Some other fables, too, with a similar moral may have presented themselves. But Mr. Stringer, we are bound to say, was not cast down. He offered, indeed, to give his advice gratis to the Licensing Committee, and it must have been difficult for the Committee to have refused such a generous offer. Perhaps Mr. Stringer thought that, having had a considerable hand in getting up the clause, he was naturally specially qualified to interpret the same. But the Committee are plain men with a sort of an idea that 2 and 2 make 4, and that when an Act declares that an auctioneer is not to hold a license, he is not to. The case is a hard one, but no doubt there are good times coming when the rough ways will he made smooth, and the little flaw in the Act will be happily put all straight.