Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coas. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1884. THE LICENSING ACT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 172, 18 June 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coas. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1884. THE LICENSING ACT.

Much dissatisfaction has of late been expressed with regard to the working of this Act.,and many thinking men have begun to fear, and naturally, that the power which is at the present time vested pi local committees is too extensive and sweeping to be wholesome for, o;' even perhaps to avoid becoming dangerous, to the public at large. Whilst thoroughly admitting that the Legislature worked for the best, when it made Local Option law, and not fora moment denying that much of the crime, misery, and wretchedness, the desolation and poverty m homes, and a hundred other terrible and revolting scenes are the direct result of drink, and that these are much increased and encouraged by the facility with which intoxicatling liquor can be obtained m all parts oftho colony, whether m large towns or small, country villages or on the road-side ; still, it seems apparent to anyone who will' meet' the question with boldness and without bias or prejudice,, that the sweeping measures that are sometimes used by Committees that favour the Temperance cause, to abolish licensed houses, are altogether too sudden, altogether too tyrannical and unreasonable, and more than this, they tend rather to weaken the cause itself, instead of, as its espoysers probably suppose, strengthen it. The proper way to get at the root of intemperance is to discover what causes men to drink intoxicating liquors. What- .makes men drink spiritous liquors ? It is thirst pure and simple?: Nine drunkards out of ten will answer, No. If is a love for the liquor ? In some cases certainly, but m a large proportion it is not even this. What then is the cause of intemperance? Why do men hang about public-houses day after day, neglecting to earn their living, and perhaps even forgetting that the family at home is poor, ill-fed and uncared for ? Is it for the sake of company with their fellow men, or because of an idle naturr, or because they have no other way of occ ipying their minds that men do this ? These seem to be the first questions that the advocates of Temperance should consider. It seems that there is something radically wrong, not only m the way m which liquor is sold, but also m the whole character and training off the men who give way to it. Licensing Committees do not seem to realize this. When three out of five of a Committee are teetotallers, they at once close all the hotels which are subject to their jurisdiction. This is a most sweeping manner of tackling the evil, ank, even if it was efficient m gaining for them their purpose it would be unfair to very many : but it unfortunately does not do away with drunkenness and its accompanying disasters. When a man wants and cannot get it at one place he goes to another for it : and if „ the nearest hotel is far away, there is morally certain to be a sly grogshop started at once, and it is of no use replying that the police would put it down, for these shops have been well known to *exist m hundreds of places m the past and will exist again,- without doubt m the future. Another light m which to look at the matter, is the comfort afforded to travellers by being able to stop at a roadside mr», either for refreshment or a meal, or a night's rest, as the case may be. Those only who have travelled along the roads of old I'ngland know the snugness of the warm parlor, the comfort of a steaming dish after a journey m inclement weather, and the satisfaction imparted by the goonnatured face of the landlord as he and his buxom dame bustle about to make the traveller comfortable. All these things are proverbial at Home, and would be, missed almost as much as the roads themselves; and yet what dreary unbroken journeys we should be forced to make on some of these colonial roads, if all the stopping places and hotels were peremptorily closed. The highways would ba deserted and traffic on them almost necessarily suspended. Then, again, if sudden measures are to be employed to do away with licensed houses at a minute's notice, no well-to-do men will dare go m for the business at all, and the consequence will be

that what hotels arc allowed to remain open will be owned by men of an inferior class, who have nothing to lose either m respectability or m cash, and the results will be more disastrous than ever to the community; and lastly, there is the plain well-known fact that what lias been m existence .so many years, takes a considerable amount of time to do away with. Men who have been accustomed to liquor so long cannot be expected to stand quietly by and see such measures taken to deprive them of it without exerting thenv selves to prolong the life of their favourite votary, and prop up the falling monuments of their folly to the utmost of their power, and : hus an opposition is at once aroused which the Temperance cause would be entirely without were they to attempt to get at the root of the evil instead of at the evil itself. Never was a finer or more noble cause than that of Temperance ; no battle field has brought more bereavement —or what is as bad— into so many homes or made more firesides unhappy or more lires miserable; no civil war has committed such terrible ravages or ruined so many prosperous men than that terrible enemy drink ; but the friends of Temperanceerr m throwing their energyinto the Licensing Bench, and trusting entirely to the Licensing Act for thir champion, which deals only with the evil itself, and not with the root of it. Better far to ascertain and eradicate the cause of intemperance, by educating and otherwise improving men's minds, and by shewing them their follies, than by dealing with the results m a summary, explosive way which defeats certainly, but which leaves a sting with the defeated that only tends to make it a temporary and ineffectual one.