The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 28. A STATE ENTERPRISE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 93, 28 July 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 28. A STATE ENTERPRISE

| The State oi Western Austra.u o.vus a hotel at Uwana, uie outcome oi a ueicision in Iwi M us to whether the auie can run a mjuur busiI ness honesuy, ana at a svorking profit. A cablegram mentions that the profit made by tnis hotel for a year is £1463, but the State revenue from the running of hotels is the least important phase. The Western Australian Government, when it went into the experiment, by doing so emphasised the point that the general -licensing of hotels was not quite satisfactory. It did not enter into the industry to make profits or to pander to the people's appetite for drink, hut merely as a recognition that if the people must have liquor it was best to give it them under the most honest circumstances. There is no inducement in a State-owmed hotel for the manager, who is a civil servant, to increase trada or to subjugate the hostelry idea to the bar trade. The manager is tied to no one; his hotel is the property or his customers, so to speak, and he is not bound to supply one brand of a commodity, no matter what its quality may be, because there is no brewers' trust behind him watching the licensee with greedy eyes. He need not indulge in the average fiction that the accommodation is overtaxed, because his wages come along! all the same whether his bedrooms are full of guests or his bars full of customers. It is to his discredit to permit overdrinking, .to allow drinking after hours, to use his house for any but a lawful purpose, or to tout for customers. He is directly responsible to the Government for the conduct of the State's house, the quantity of liquor sold, the accommodation provided, and the results at the end of the year. As a salaried official there is no inducement for him to "go wrong," and the only method by which he can hope to get his salary increased is to "run straight." Under a State-owned system in this country the great monopolists, who are the most powerful corporation in New Zealand; would be forced to loose their grip, and, except in the wholesale production of liquor—which. the State need only ..uy if it weTe up to specifications-rit would have to employ its immense wealth in other avenues than in the building of hotels and the domination of licensee and the "refreshing" public. If it is granted that the age-old habits of a people cannot be cured by a stroke of the pen, it will be allowed that an enormously profitable monopoly should be smitten for the benefit of the people and the Coffers of the State. The people only can say whether liquor shall goor stay, and if they say it shall stay, it would be far better that it stayed under Government supervision than as a purely money-making concern. Western Australia has not gone far in its experiment, and if New Zealand followed in th" footsteps that State she might with reason experiment, as a.start, with one house. If it was successful from the point of view of, conduct and efficiency, it would be easy to extend the system, and the will of the people as to the ultimate wiping out of licenses, with a view to the institution of a general State system, could easily be discovered by the interest they took in the project and in the State hostelries. The State system would do away with espionage and any dishonesty that mav exist, it would give the people a better article for their money, but it would, above all, kill the biggest monopoly in New Zea- | land, i.e., the brewers'.