The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1882.

Kumara Times, Issue 1723, 8 April 1882, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1882.

That wonderful specimen of legislative confusion worse confounded,” the Licensing Act, promises to find sufficient employment for the magistracy of New Zealand, and that before Ion". If we take the lengthy measure as a wkole, it

is easy to suppose that no two lawyers, uor even judges, would interpret it in the same way. Some Resident Magistrates of large experience have already ruled that the Act, in its entirety, is in force throughout the colony, and a large number of convictions against publicans have been obtained. It is a great pity that something like a combination should not be entered into among the trade to test in the higher Courts the dicta of the lower. If the whole of the Act is in force, how is it that we find that although the authorities have decided that the holder of a publican’s license may not have a ball upon his premises, still all houses are yet allowed to remain open for business until an hour after the time the new Act states they shall close. The interpretation of this contradiction appears to be found in the fact that permission to hold balls is only applied for in a few particular eases, and a publican as an individual does not care about calling down upon himself the direct hostility of the authorities, while at the same time if au attempt was made to enforce another pai't of the Act under which all licenseholders, except those having midnight licenses, must close their houses at ten o’clock, there would immediately be open defiance of what is said to be the law, to test the question at issue. Unfortunately, in Westland there appears to exist an unwillingness or inability to attend to or consider the general interests of the publicans’ trade, that is so far as the publicans themselves are concerned. With a verv few exceptions the publicans have Ren accustomed to consider themselves merely the dispensers of drink, and anyone applying for what the Americans would call “a square meal,” would be looked upon as a very improper person, who sought to disturb the peace and harmony of a household. So long as such a state of things exists, the I’eal interests of the trade will be neglected, and those who honestly seek to comply with the law will or can be made to suffer the most absurd and preposterous penalties, while the mere whisky dispenser, doing a particular trade of his own, where a pack of cards is more often called for than a dinner, will pull through, and escape the troubles which beset his less fortunate compeers. A Licensed Victuallers’ Association was formed in Knmara some time since, and for awhile meetings were held with some degree of regularity, but of late it seems to have been determined to allow the publicans’ trade to drift at the mercy of the winds and the tides. The apathy which exists among those most interested is hard to understand, but we fancy that there will be a somewhat sudden awakening after the first annual sitting of the Licensing Court in June next. As things are at present no publican knows the position in which he stands, and may, for all he knows to the contrary, by almost every act of his life be subjecting himself to penalties more or less heavy. Parliament will meet for the dispatch of business about the middle of next month, and there should be immediate preparation for making an effbrt to cause such amendments to be made in the Licensing Act as will reduce it to the form of something like a reasonable and workable measuie.