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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 983, 1 October 1881, Page 2

Our special correspondent at Dunedin, has wired to us the particulars of the quashing, by the Chief Justice, of the original conviction in the lower Court of a publican named Waters, of the Price of Wales Hotel in that city, for an alleged breach of the law for “supplying ” liquor on Sunday. As it has been pointed out, Mr. Waters gave the liquor, we suppose to a friend, but did not sell it to a customer. The Magistrate —erring, as they all do, on the right side, so as not to bring themselves into a collision with the Government —held that even giving liquor away, was “supplying” in such a way, as to be tantamount to selling it, and entered judgment accordingly. But Chief Justice Prendergast held a different view, and set the judgment aside.

We are not aware of the contents of the Otago ordinance, under which the case was heard ; but, the principle is, undoubtedly, the same as that in the general law of the Colony, and we are glad that Mr. Waters has so successfully appealed. One Magistrate has gone so far as to say that the strict letter of the Act prevents an hotelkeeper from “ supplying ” even “ his own father ” with liquor on a Sunday in any shape or form ; while others hold such extreme opinions, as would lead to convictions before them of landlords allowing a lodger’s visiting friend to take wine or beer wdth him at a social meal. Of course, it is understood that the supplying “ without consideration ” alluded to by the judge, must be bona Jide without any promise to pay at any future time, or to be put down in the customer’s account ; but even these latter, we feel sure, would be allowable to lodgers in an hotel ; and we trust that if any Magistrate convicts on such a charge, an appeal will be made to the Supreme Court, on that point also.

We trust the reporter of Mr. Locke’s speech at the County Hall, Wairoa, is at fault ; but he is reported in the Guardian to have said that we cannot “ govern the country by means of con- “ stitutions. The French tried that “ during the Revolution and failed, “ manufacturing a new constitution “ every month. The people must “ govern themselves : Constitutions grow.” Mr. Locke further proved the-negative by an affirmative illustration, for, he says : —“ It was with “ communities as with families, as “ soon as the members were grown up “ they wished to be out of leading- “ strings. He would instance the “ way in which Haw r ke’s Bay separa- “ ted from Wellington, and Marl- “ borough from Nelson under the new “ Provinces Act ; then the Counties “ Act came into force.”

Now, we think it Mr. Locke had gone a little more into the matter, he would have been able, by continuing the circle, to arrive at exactly the same spot at w'hich he started ; or, if a lucky accident had taken him from the clashing ideas of Constitutions and Institutions, he must have discovered that (provided he was speaking of the last French Revolution) the failure of French people was not due so much to not being able to govern by means of a Constitution, as to having no Constitution at all to govern with. True, all that is included and comprehended in a Constitutional form of Government, crumbles, and falls away before the persistent blows of anarchy and rebellion ; and, if Mr. Locke acknowledges this, we agree with him that Anarchists and Revolutionists cannot “ govern the country by means of Constitutions,” for it is the condition, and operation of the laws of Constitutions, and with which the people disagree, that force them to rebellion. But surely Mr. Locke did not presage, by his remarks, that the Constitution, under whose liberties he claimed the support of the suffrages of his hearers, will dwindle into space, “like the baseless fabric of a vision r” Such horoscopic utterances may well cause alarm to the thoughtful ; for there must be something hidden in the speaker’s mind when he addresses a body of British subjects — united by charter, under one of the freest, and more glorious Constitutions ever given to free men —and tells them, infeientially, to abandon all forms and ceremonies appertaining to Constitutions, and—what ? Govern themselves ! But still Mr. Locke acknowdedges that “ Constitutions grow.” Of course Mr. Locke may not have committed himself so’ gravely as his reported speech makes it appear ; and we are inclined to think Mr. Locke said or meant “ Institutions,” although even that explanation will not fit in nicely; therefore, in travelling so fleetly from the time of the French Revolution, to the partition of Hawke’s Bay from Wellington, and of Marlborough from Nelson, down to the Counties Act coming into force in New Zealand, it is difficult to discover the exact, occult, meaning intended.