The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1882.

Kumara Times, Issue 1755, 16 May 1882, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1882.

The Licensing Act muddle increases every day and every hour, and how rational beings should have placed such a preposterous measure, on the statute book it is very difficult to understand. If you road the Act ten times a day, yon will be certain to find new absurdities iu it every time. There are so many forms and c remonies to be gone through even in making an application for a renewal as to disgust anyone. But in addition to this there are portions of the Act which cannot by any possibility be carried out. In districts where the voice of the people has declared that no new publican's licenses shall be issued, we will take the case of a man who has hitherto held a " bush l : cense." No#nch thing is to be found in the Licensing Act, consequently there can be no renewal, while at the same time no new publican's license can be granted. And yet that is strictly what the Act says and means. Can anything be more absurd and unjust? Let us turn to the 115th section, and see what that says on another subject. It says this :—" Every person applying for a new license, or the renewal of a license, shall state the name of the owner or mortgagee (if any) of the premises in respect of which such license is granted or renewed, and such name shall be indorsed on the license. Tire person whose name ia so stated shall, subject a.<? hereinafter mentioned, be deemed for the purposes of this Act to be the owner of the premises." We should like to know what possible benefit cau arise from parading publicly the names of men who. may by the very stringency of the Act be driven to borrow money to effect improvements., additious, or alterations which aro nude compulsory under the most stupid measure which a legislature ever passed % Truly we can see none. It ia an entirely unnecessary prying into and publishing of private matters which ean be of no earthly interest to the general public, and the Assembly should not have suffered the existence of such a clause. In fact the whole of the Act is one huge mass of contradictions. Turn over its pages, and in one place yon t»ay possibly discover son*© 1 - thing which appears to have a sort of a dim light upon some question upon which you require to be enlightened. Turn over another leaf or two, and you will find something diametrically oppo-p-'site. Of all the blind guides ever let loose on the face of the earth the Licensing Act is most decidedly the blindi's-e and the worst. It is to be fce-ped that the various Licensing Committees- will put a liberal interpretation nj*>n the measure they have to carry out, op such a state of utter confusion will arise as will render the holding of a pelican's license a moral impossibsatv. But still we must remember" thtft in many particulars the Aet is pt-rnmptory, and the Committees will' be hnm*l to see- carried out the mostafistmT conditions and restrictions. The Assembly meets in a few days, and cvne of the frr*t thiivgs which should be taken in fraud is the Licensing Act. To aiwnd ft will' be no easy matter, for it is not at all wnlikely that every individual mwmber of both, branches of the Leg slat are n;IK discovered in it a separate defect. The best thing would be to repeal it altogether, nnd let some of fchose m-i<fht.y stiitcsii'pn who lsngtheiv

the sessions in ttair efforts to obtain office prove their title to some consideration as politicians i>y preparing a new measure with less than a thousand and one contradictions and blunders in it.