The New Licensing Bench and Sunday Trading.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 39, 1 March 1884, Page 6

The New Licensing Bench and Sunday Trading.

In an articlo on the above subject in the "Herald" on Saturday, our contemporary says : — " Neither police nor Magistrate has anything to do with it. They may both go to bed now, so far as any necessity for them exists in suppressing Sunday trading. No longer need the policeman go in by the front door, while at a signal from the watchman the customers fly out at the rear, or thrust the tumblers into their pockets and look innocent, and jibe at the policeman because he cannot swear he saw them actually drinking, or the barman serving them. . . It requires no conviction necessarily to the withholding of a license We venture to say without any hesitation that in the case of a public-house in which forty or fifty people are seen going in and out in a couple of hours of a Sunday afternoon, it will bo taken for granted that they are not going into that bar parlour for a prayer-meeting, and that the Licensing Committee will find ' that in their opinion there is no necessity for that public-house.' The Licensing Committee will not be required to state their ether reasons, or to have the evidence of any policeman. Let them simply- be assured in their oiun minds that Sunday trading is carried on, and when the application for the renewal of that license comes up, they may simply say, *in their opinion there is no necessity for that public-house.' Unquestionably it is the law that the granting or refusal of licenses is entirely at the discretion of the Licensing Committee, but surely our contemporary is misrepresenting the recently-elected benches when it states that in future hotelkeepers may be held guilty of Sunday trading without being proved guilty, and that the magistracy and police are in future absolved from their duties, and "may both go to bed now, so far as any necessity for them exists in suppressing Sunday trading," because it is only requisite for the Committee to be " assured in their own minds that Sunday trading is carried on." We have always believed that the law of England held every man to be innocent, however much appearances nviy be against him, until ho is proved to be guilty, but under the new dictum neither reasons nor evidence— only certain beliefs in the minds of biassed magistrates— are wanted. There are hotels in Auckland— the Governor Browne for example — where forty or fifty persons might go in and out on a Sunday afternoon, and all of them be boarders. Yet this, according to our contemporary, would be a sufficient and just cau&e for cancelling the license of the hotel, and convicting its landlord of ai offence of which he may be as innocent as the Licensing Committee itself. Such a doctrine is only calculated to alienate public sympathy from the Committees which have just been chosen by an overwhelming vote. The moral of that vote is not to relieve the police and magistrates of their responsibilities, but to increase them, by telling these servants of the public what the people want, and warning them that if they are either disinclined or incompetent to obtain respect for the law, we shall get other magistrates and other policemen who are better fitted for their duties. Last Tuesday's poll is not a signal for policemen and magistrates to go to bed, but to wake up and do their duty ; and if they heed the warning there will be no difficulty in putting down Sunday trading by lawful and equitable processes, the reasons for which the Committees will have no cause to keep hidden in the secret recesses of their own minds.

Morrinsville, on Monday last, thon w n ' no business of importance to trans-ict,. Mr Chepm?ll was appointed Chairm m. At Tail wh are. In'f-way between Morrinsville and Hamilton, the Auckland Lan I Association's new township, a very comfortable and spacious hotel lias lately been built, ami is being 1 carried on by Mr Williamson, who is also the owner of a blacksmit .'s sliop just started in the same place. A post office has b^en established then 1 , and several now houses are expected to be shortly civet od. It does not seem to be so generally known as it should be that all Money Order and Savings Bank business can now be transacted at the local post office, conduetel by Mr 11. J. Clifford. Mr Win. Lovett has got tho contract for the bal'asting and laying the permenant way of the Cambridge railway line, but he will not be able to commence- work for a week or two yet, as the line between -the bridge over the river at Hamilton an 1 the point of junction on tho llamilton-Morrinsvillc line, from which the Cambridge branch starts, is not yet completed. Messrs Hunt and White have several gangs of men at work on the formation of the line from Morrinsville to To Aroha, and aic taong advantage of the present fine, weather to form parts of the line that were too wet to work upon during the winter months. Tlie Waitoa station site has. boon fence 1 in, and the men are principally employed along some four miies of tiie lines beyond Waihou. Considerable interest is evinced with regard to a I'cnor.d meeting of those interested in forming a lAirmeis' Cooperative Association to !>e held on the 10th of March next, in th<- Pubic Hull, Hamilton. Wes\ Mr Barton, who actively canvassed every district of the Waikato, W.iipa, and Pi.iko counties, j has recohed mucii encouragement. Ft-es'i evideuc ' of tae necessity to the fanner of borne iiieh institution to bring buyer an I seller fogeth'r in the nnnn (i r nidst profitable to loth, is continually coming forward. The mi idle man has been having tilings a little too much his own way. A fanncia' co-operative association would doubt ess be well supported, and prove a boon to many. The regular monthly meeting of the Waitoa Highway Board was held on Saturday last. There were rrcsent, the Chairman (Mr Chepmell), ajid Messrs Gould, Buck, Seddon, and R. Parr. The engineers, Messrs iSandes and Napper, were also in attendance. The various contracts in hand were reported to be in anything but a satisfactory condition as >egards completion to date. lv tne case of Mnrpny's contract, for the Ngatumans^a ro.i«i, it was resolved j to put men on and finish tne work at the contractor's risk, in the ot'ier c.iss'S it was agreed to notify contractors that if their works were not completed or proceeding by the 31*t inst. tie deposits would be I'orKMted, and t.ie penalties indicted without exception. In one insUiace, a contractor wuose time wa^ up last November, only started work a lew weeks ago. This backward state of tilings has been brought about partly by the difficulty in obtaining men tor the work, and contractors taking contracts than it has been possible for them to carry out. The £400 loan gran ted under the Roads and Bridges Construction Act was allocated as follow?: — £180 between the Waihon and the river, and the balance between the Waioou and Morrinsville, including tue bud portion of t.ie road noar Mr *'>irra\'s p">p->rty. T'le Enuinoers were instrui-(-<H <• » ctII for ten Icrs ior ail tue worics forthwith.