THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1573.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1676, 17 December 1873, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1573.

The difficulties attendant upon the introduction of the new Licensing Act seem to have been generally admitted by the several Benches in the different parts of the Colony, so that the Magistrates of Westland have the satisfaction of. knowing that they are not singular in their opinion; •Nor does the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral on the subject appear to differ materially from that of the Justices, although with that lofty superiority to all mere legal considerations, which is too apt to be the rule rather than the exception with high Government officials on occasions where their views are contrary to the strict letter of the law, he suggests that very ready method of solution — to ignore the law. The following is his opinion on the case, as telegraphed to the Superintendent of Otago :— "I cannot direct the Magistrate, or advise him. I think that, as the Provincial Ordinances axe to be read -with, the Act, the proper course . is to continue to issue licenses under these Ordinances till 3 une, that in those Provinces in which any date earlier than the 30th June is the date at wbich licenses expire, the renewal and new licenses should issue irrespective of this Act." It id rather astonishing to find the Law Officer of the Crown thus ■ palmjy suggesting a deliberate infraction of the lajy as the " proper" course to be adopted in any case, and although no doubt in this cas,e the convenience of thus dividing the Gordian knot is very great, jt can hardly

be held a very wise precedent to establish. That the Attorney-General holds his suggestion to be a strictly illegal one seems tolerably clear from the excessively cautious manner in which, before making it, he disclaims all power of directing or advising the Magistrate, nor can we think that anyone who reads the new measure can doubt that the granting of licenses under the old ordinances is unwarranted. The Slat section of the Act says, it is true, that "this Act shall be taken and read as part of any existing Act or Ordinance," but a simple declaration of thi3 kind cannot render that which is impossible practicable, any more than the mere assertion that it did so would make a straight line include a space. Singularly enough, in the same clause it is provided that no clause of any Provincial Act shall be valid, if in conflict with any of the provisions of the "Licensing Act, 1873," and this seems altogether conclusive against the legality of issuing licenses "irrespective of this Act," as the Attorney-General states would be proper. As to the argument that it was clearly not the intention of the Legislature t to supersede the old Ordinances until the new Act was fully in force and the new Court appointed, it appears to matter very.little what the Legislature's intentions may have been, since the Colony has, or ought to have been guided by its Acts. In the present instance it cannot even be said that the Act has been cleverly evaded throughout the Colony. It has been simply set at naught, and its meaning, which no torturing of English can bring into accord with the course adopted, been quietly passed over. When this has been once done, in a country where the Acts of the Legislature have far too much in common with the other slop goods of thtj century, it ia impossible to foresee how soon it may be held needful to repeat the experiment in cases where no such good purpose as that which the transgression of the law in this.instance accomplishes, is attained.