WHY NOT OPEN BARS?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 27, 22 June 1914, Page 4

WHY NOT OPEN BARS?

• Says the Sydney Daily Telegraph:— The licencing .system of thus country is one of the most convincing proofs of the inability of Australians to toko their pleasures .rationally. In amy civilised European country a man may ait in the open air and listen to music while be eats his meal and drinks coffee, light beer or wine. In Sydney, in a semitropical climate, he aits indoors and washes down ill-cooked food with' a black fluid called tea, or else goes into a public-house, where his presence is unwelcome unless he will consume a certain amount of alcohol. Our licensing: system is copied from the system which has filled London with gin palaces, and is, therefore, established as firmly as the architecture of our publje buildings. Even where it has been amended tihb amendments have been suited to the needs of any country hut our own. Under the law at present in force a wide country district where arco-nrmodation is needed is left without a hotel, while one -is left at every alternate corner in the city. If ever 'a Government had an opportunity to benefit the country and show its freedom from traditions, this Government has one in our licensing laws and housing conditions. But we are only following another nationsel tendency when we call upon the Government for reform. An essential preliminary is to see that drift and acquiescence are not allowed to continue without warning; thai; public opinion is informed of the growth of evils which become each year more difficult to eradicate.