Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1870.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 804, 14 July 1870, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1870.

During the discussion which took place in the House of .Representatives on the 30th ult. on Mr Carleton's motion that the laws relating to the traffic in spirituous liquors ought to be amended, —the subject of the supply of liquors to persons of the native race, which is carried on in defiance ol the existing law, was mad§ the principal topic of , debate.

Mr Carleton said, " At the present time except on the licensing day, the magistrates had no power of enforcing the law in regard to the sale of liquors to natives, unless an information was laid. It was a very difficult thing to get an information laid. In his own experience on the Bench he had *een but two. Not only natives, but also Europeans, were averse to he called informers. The natives were anxious that some restriction should be placed upon the sale of liquors; but his answer to them was, that if they would go before the Bench and lay an information, the Bench would do wh:it was right. They declined to lay the information, and consequently the law absolutely remained a dead letter." He argued that in consequence of the non-enforcement of the law, it should be repealed ; notwithstanding the fact that the natives desired it to be enforced. "Not only the sober, but even the drunkards among them, took much interest in it, and desired that the temptation to evil should be removed from them He thought the Government were bound to interfere, and either abrogate the law T altogether, or enforce it" We won. der that any alternative should be proposed, or that any good .should be supposed possible from a repeal of the law. In our view there is but one remedy for the evil, and that is the strictest enforcement of the existing law. At present, even under the abuse of the system, the sale of liquor to a native is an illegal aci, and consequently the seller has no locus standi in a court of justice for the recovery of debts incurred on this account by the natives, and so far, at least, the law is a protection to the race. It is a well-known fact that the lands of the natives are rapidly passing into the hands of the grog-sellers in payment for liquor; but as long as the trafficker has no power to enforce his claim as for liquor sold, so long has the native at least some protection from debt and pauperism. Once place die native in this respect on the same footing as the European settler, and he would have credit to any extent, on the strength of his being owner or part owner of a block of land. Of course we do not here allude to " tippling/' where a magistrate would probably refuse to enforce payment in either case; but to the larger sales of liquor, which invohe the transfer of native lands. The Government at present make no attempt to enforce the law. The matter should not be left in the hands of the public, who "do not like to be called informers "; but the police should be instructed to prosecute in every case of a breach of the law, just as they have to do in respect of any other offence on the part of a liquor-dealer t and we are sure that no more difficulty need exist in the way of enforcing the law against the 'sale of liquor to a native, than exists against the enforcement of any other law whatever.

The case is precisely the same as it was with the old Native Land Purchase Ordinance. A great fuss was made from time to time respecting its violation; but no effort was made by the Governments of the day to enforce it. Favorites and dependents were allowed to deal with the natives with impunity, and even thoue in whose hands the execution of the law was placed, became, if they were not before, amongst the chief offenders against it, until it was asserted that the law could not be enforced. Then, as now, too, a great outcry was made

against "injustice to the native, who ought to be placed on the same footing as the pakeha in respect of his rights " —his right in the former case being to sell his birth-right and become a pauper; and in the present to brutalize himself by alcohol, and hasten the pauperizing process.

There are difficulties in the way of enforcing every law; ..but Governments do not therefore relax their exertions to give them effect. Every law, too, is more or less evaded in particular instances; but this is not an argument for the repeal of all law. The excise is often cheated, and smuggling is practised to some extent, notwithstanding the vigilance of the Customs officers, yet these gentlemen do not relax their efforts in consequence of partial failure; but, make the law felt in all cases that fall within their power. No doubt a smuggler when punished fancies that he suffers a comparative hardship when he compares his case with those equally guilty ones who escape punishment; but still justice is satisfied in his particular case, and the fact that others do so is not admitted as an argument in his favor. So in the case of the laws enacted for the special benefit of the native race —the Land Purchase Ordinance could have been made a reality and not a sham if the Government had been so minded, and the Liquor Law may be made to be no longer " the greatest sham of the day," if only the police have stringent instructions to see it carried into execution.

Another poinb we wish to allude to before we have done, and this is, the sale of liquors bj- natives, of course unlicensed. Mr Fox says: " En his own neighborhood, almost under his nose, and that of the Resident Magistrate of the district, liquor was sold by natives in grogshops in their pas. In every pa in the neighborhood he had seen grogshops established by natives* where they sold grog over the counter just as it was sold in a grog-shop in any otber part of the Colony," and he implies that there is not any remedy for such a state of affairs. It has come to this—that the members of the Government and of the legisjlalure proclaim in the face of the Colony and the world that the lawsare openly broken " undertheirnoses,' , and they can't help it. A European selling grog openly without a licence would quickly find the machinery of the law set in motion against him, while a Maori is able to set the same at defiance. The Government dare not " beard the lion in his den " —the Maori in his pa.