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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 952, 11 June 1881, Page 2

There were two or three questions discussed at the Licensing Court on Tuesday last, which will be found to be interesting to our readers, and on which it may be useful to make a few remarks. The first is the case of Mr. H. Trimmer, landlord of the Ferry Hotel, Tologa Bay. Mr. Trimmer applied for a reduction of his license fee from £W, and 'assured the Bench that he did not think he should be able to pay that sum for the ensuing year. A consultation took place amongst the Commissioners, when Mr. Price, the Chairman, announced that two of the four were in favor of a reduction of the fee, and, as he was adverse to the reduction, he should give his casting vote accordingly. The license fee, therefore, stands at £lO. Now, without impugning what Mr. Price, doubtless, considers a righteous act, and one perfectly justiable according to his view, we do think it a pity he did not explain the reasons that led him to his decision. We know 7 there is a legal maxim, or quaint saying of one of England’s eminent judges, that it is the worst thing possible to give a reason for

one’s judgment. But Mr. Price, above all men we ever heard, is so very fond of entertaining this amiable weakness, that it was remarkable why he departed from his usual course on this occasion ; and the more particularly so when we reflect that there was a conflict of opinion between himself and his fellow 7 Commissioners. Possibly it may have weighed with him that as there are other two hotels almost within gun-shot of the Ferry Hotel, had Mr. Trimmer’s license fee been reduced, it would have furnished a strong argument for both Mr. M. Mullooly and Mr. Cannon to urge their claim to a like consideration. Of the parallel cases we offer no opinion ; but we are decided on the point that a license fee of £4O, for either of the three hotels at Tologa Bay, and, indeed, for any similarly situated hotel in the country, is an outrageous exaction, if not extortion. Certainly, the fees are imposed in virtue of the force and solemnity of law ; but that fact does not lessen the burden of infliction. The same may be said of the Murewai Hotel, and other up-country houses, the traffic past which cannot sustain the owner against loss. These Licensing Commissioners have very arbitrary powers, which they invariably use with an unsparing hand. But if Mr. Price erred in the foregoing direction, we give him credit for the stand he took against the report of the police, in which it was recommended that the Royal Oak Hotel, at Matawhero, was not necessary, as there was one at Roseland, and another at the Waipaoa Bridge—three hotels in a distance of as many miles Sergeant Bullen thought were too many, and advised that the Bench take notice of his recommendation. Mr. Price expressed himself as emphatically opposed to any such course. He might be of opinion that there were too many hotels for the population ; but he w’ould not be a party to taking away a man’s livelihood. There was a great difference between granting a new license, and taking away an old one, unless there was a most forcibly pronounced necessity for so doing. He held that a license once granted gave to its owner a vested interest in and right over the property, of which he should not be flippantly divested. Unless the licensee forfeited his right to the continuance of his license, by some breach of the law, he would not accept the responsibility of its cancellation.