OUR LICENSING LAWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5540, 30 December 1878, Page 2

OUR LICENSING LAWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIKES. Snt, —Most people are agreed that the liquor traffic, or drunkenness, is the parent of the greatest and most terrible evils that afflict society. I for one am of opinion that these evils cannot well be exaggerated, as the curse does not end with the present inebriates, but is transmitted to their offspring in the form of weakened mental, moral, apd physical constitutions. Yet there is a great diversity of opinion as to the best means of suppressing it. Various are the kinds of nostrums put forward for the purpose. X, too, have my plan, which I will take the liberty of placing before the public, not that there is anything new xh it, but because I think it embraces principles which are too often lost sight of in our attempts to deal with the subject. While I accept the general proposition that you cannot make men moral or sober by legislation, I maintain that legislation may be converted into a great remedial machine in lessening the crime and misery which is the daily and natural outcome of indulging too freely in the intoxicating draught; and In my opinion one of the reasons why more has not been done in this direction is the violent and impracticable remedies put forward by those who are most anxious for its suppression—many of whom oan see no good in any scheme but the entire abolition of the trade—forgetting or ignoring the power that is behind the throne of the beer cask, and disgusting the advocates for more moderate and practicable measures, hence the state of chaos in which our licensing laws and their administration remain. As a remedy or palliation of this evil (however paradoxical it may appear) I would not suggest an attempt by direct legislation to limit the number of licensed houses, but would restrict the number by some such provisions as the following : Ist. No license should be granted to any house that did not contain certain specified accommodation for the comfort and convenience of those who from choice or necessity wished to avail themselves of it. 2nd. As a high standard of accommodation would reduce the number of licensed houses so it would increase the monopoly of the traffic, which should be met by an increase of the license fee ; (3rd) that proper officers be appointed for their inspection, such inspection to extend to the details of accommodation (as it is notorious that the accommodation in some of our large hotels is simply execrable) ; (4th) that the liquors sold should be placed under the strictest supervision (as the so-called good liquor, everyone knows, is bad enough); (sth) that the punishment for sly grog-selling should be imprisonment instead of a money fine, as at present, as it is well known that the profits of one night’s debauch often far exceed in amount the heaviest' fine imposed. The suppression of sly grog-selling and low drinking shops, where filth and vice reign supreme, would not only protect the more respectable hotelkeepers, but greatly lessen the crime and misery arising from drunkenness. It is not in our respectable and well-conducted hotels, but in these houses where liquors of the most poisonous kind are sold, and drunkenness and other nameless vices reign rampant. It is principally from those dons that our gaols and lunatic asylums are supplied with the victims of drink. Our laws against sly- grog-selling and adulterated liquors are far too l&x, while the administration of existing laws is most inefficient and contemptible. To our philanthropists who are waging war against the monster evil of intemperance I would say no longer waste your energies iu attempting the impossible, but turn your attention to the practical—l am, &c., Total Abstainer.