The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1915. LICENSING REFORM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 301, 29 May 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1915. LICENSING REFORM.

A movement is afoot in Victoria to reform the licensing system along constructive lines. At present Victorian voters have three issues placed before tlicm —(1) continuance, (2) redu-.'tion, and (3) no license, similar to the issues that formerly obtained in New Zealand. Another issue is to be added, namely, disinterested management. In other words, it enables those who are against the continuance of the existing system of public-house management, and who are not content with a mere reduction of hotels, to have some alternative to the barren prohibition or nolicense policy of the oliicial temperance party. It widens-the people's choice. It opens the door to a complete reform of hotel management by banishing temptation to stimulate the sale of alcoholics; it does it through counter interests developed by a policy of "disinterested management." The constructive social reformer in this country could profitably turn his attention, to improving th' liquor system along these lines. The supporter of the "fourth option" in Victoria claims that the carrying of this issue would rob the drink traffic of all its attendant scandals. lie wants to eliminate from "the licensee or his manager all inducement to push the sale of intoxicants. - lie feels be can do this by the fourth option policy, under which all the houses in a district voting "disinterested management" would pass into the hands of a private. State or municipal trust. These homes would be governed by a deed securing these safeguards: (1) The limitation of shareholders' or State profits to 5 per cent, on the real capital invested. Surplus profits to go to recreative and charitable agencies. (2) The conversion of the houses from "drinking pub--" to "'refreshment house-;,'' to which tea gardens and dining-rooms would be attached. (,'!) The absence of any inducements to the manager to urge customer.-, to drink intoxicants. This is attained by depriving him of any interest therein, and granting him a pecuniary interest (apart from salary) in the sale of non-intoxicants and food. (1) Early closing. (5) Absolute prohibition of the sale, of intoxicants to any persons even "appearing"' to be suli'ering from excess, (li) Disciplinary control over bar trade, enabling the management to check excessive drinking early in the career of a given customer. It may be said that these ideal conditions are impossible of attainment. The Victorian fourth optionists claim that these conditions, ui' something closely approximating them, obtain in hundreds of centres in Great Britain; and but for the fanalir-al intolerance of the compulsory teototalism party would to-day be grafted into the British licensing system. Private publichouse trusts, such as those described by Mr. Alexander F., Part in the January "Nineteenth Century," have in many villages wrought a social revolution of a salutary kind by the application of "disinterested management" principles. "The common mistake," says a writer,

"is to lay all the Maine for certain evils upon drink, whereas the true evil is to 1)0 found in the conditions under which if. is distributed, and in over-indulgence. Experience shows that guarantee of purity of alcoholics, limited indulgence and healthy surroundings should he the first aims of the practical temperance reFormer." But the official temperance party f Victoria declines to recognise all this. It agrees to "continuance"— which it hates and fights ,\vith pen and voice from daylight to nightfall, as its brethren do in New Zealand —going to the people as one of the options; but it cries out in horror at a fourth option which would permit the electors to prefer "disinterested management" to either "continuance," "reduction" or "no license." There are indications that in the coming session of the Victorian State Parliament members who are in no way pledged to any particular organisation will urge the Ministry to concentrate on —>(1) an early closing referendum and (2) the fourth option, as the main planks of a constructive temperance policy. Along these lines permanent advance can bo made. Unfortunately any reform of hotels meets with the violent hostility of the Prohibition party. They are "whole hoggors"— they want to kill, not improve, licensing conditions. Compromise with these is out of the question. The liquor evil must be rooted out. So we see in New Zealand a monopoly that is fattening and enjoying an immunity from practical overseeing and regulating as a result of the operations of its sworn and implacable enemy —the Prohibitionists. The great moderate section has no voice at all, »r at least it allows its voice to lie drowned by the clamor of the extremists, who consequently have things all their own way. Some day, the moderates will take a more practical interest in the solution of this great social question and pay heed to the "fourth option" and other-constructive reforms of the trade.