The Hawke's Bay Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY. MONDAY, JUNE 17, 1867. THE LIQUOR AND ITS ACTION ON THE ABORIGINAL RACE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 485, 17 June 1867, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY.

MONDAY, JUNE 17, 1867. THE LIQUOR AND ITS ACTION ON THE ABORIGINAL RACE.

" Xiil'iUS addict'.-a jurarc in verba majis/ri."

A eespectei> m a temperately written communication of this morning’s issue, has directed our attention to the encouragement given by our rulers and magistrates to the drinking system by the increased facilities they have given to the traffic in the multiplication of licensed houses, and in the ignoring of the law which makes it penal to supply persons of the native race with intoxicants. The subject opened up by our cor respondent is indeed a wide one, involving questions of both moral and political importance,—one, too, that cannot be contemplated by the philanthropist without pain, but amongst ihe right-thinking portion of the com munity there is and can be but one opinion concerning the course of policy pursued by our rulers, —that it is altogether a false and suicidal one, involving the physical and moral degre dation of tixe colonist, and the speedy annihilation of the native race. The great bugbear of the day on this question of questions is the word Revenue and most true it is that a great proportion of the Government receipts is jat present derived from the drinking system; but if any legislator be bold

enough to direct his intention to the subject of the cost to the people' from whom this p jrtiou of the revenue is raised, he cannot but he convinc'd that its sucnlicc (_it it were involved j would cheaply purchase the immunity from the misery, poverty, crime, and attendant evils of the present order of

li. appears to us that another session of the General Assembly of New Zealand cannot be allowed to pass without 3‘ium attempt at a reform of so great an evil—one which lays the whole energies of a people ia the dust, and by its baneful, counteracting influence neutralises all the advantages which, as a Colony, we possess in our flue climate and freedom from many of the obstructions to progress experienced in the old cuuutrv.

liut the efforts of tbo legislature in this direction must be seconded by the magistrate, or all legislation, on this or any other subject, is much worse than useless. If laws are to be placed on the statute book merely to be ignored by the executive police, far belter would it be that no legislation at all should take place, rather than laws should be treated with contemptuous indifference, It is well known that the law prohibiting tlm supply of natives with intoxicants is openly and shamelessly violated day by day by the dealers in them ; well known to the police and magistrates; openly acknowledged by the dealers themselves, when, as frequently happens, a case of the deadly action of the traffic upon its victims is exposed by the press. Day after day, too, are the natives to be seen ia the act of procuring the deadly article from the licensed dispenser, and reeling from the effects of their indulgence. Not seldom are some of the worst of these cases brought before the magistrate, and the victim of the snare set for

him at almost every corner, —and, to say {ho least, winked at by the magisterial body, —fined for his drunkenness. Bat even in these cases his being able to procure the means ol intoxication is treated as a matter oi coarse, and no enquiry is ever made, that w? hare known, a* to hyw or

where it was obtained, or who it is that has transgressed the Lw in supplying it, although it would be but just to the victim that this should be done, and the worst party of the two be made to feel the effects of his crime as well as the other. We are happy to say that dealers in alcoholic liquors in some of the other provinces are not permitted to j violate the law for the protection of, or the natives as tuty art; m xi.awk.Gbj Bay. We frequently meet with cases reported in our contemporaries in which the law is brought to bear upon the transgressor, and we see no reason why the liquor trafficers of our province should be exempt from them.