LIQUOR TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1922, Page 5

LIQUOR TRADE.

THE PROPOSED CHANGES. AIM AT BETTER HOTELS. RIGHTS OF THE KING COUNTRY. By Telegraph.—-Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The adjourned debate on the Licensing Committee’s report was resumed in the House to-day. , , .. Sir John Luke (Wellington North) said that the large body of opinion which favored State control should be considered, and there should be an issue put before the people which would give these people an opportunity of expressing their ideas. One of the most important recommendations cf the committee was that, if prohibition was carried, four years should lapse before it came into operation. It was felt that, having regard to the business and social interests of the Dominion, this extension was necessary, and unless this was granted he failed to see how there could be any improvement in the liquor trade. At present hotel accommodation was not in keeping with the tariff charged, but unless security of tenure was given there would be no improvement. This applied to country districts as well as to the cities. An extension of licenses to four years after prohibition was carried was really an alternative to the payment of compensation, the principle of which had already been acknowledged. He wished to be perfectly fair, but his personal view was that if prohibition was carried it would be a great gain to the general efficjency of the Dominion. With regard to the non-sale of liquor in the King Country, he thought, in the interest of the Maori race, the existing agreement should be respected and the committee’s recommendation on this question should not be given effect to.

Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) said moat of the important recommendations of the committee were agreed to on the casting vote of the chairman. It was impossible to reconcile the conflicting interests between prohibition and the trade, and he therefore thought the best thing to do was to wipe the trade out. If prohibition was a failure the country could *?oon revert to the present or some other system. It was farcical to suggest reforms for the trade, because the trade could not be reformed; it broke the law on every occasion. Mr. F. F. Hackly (Rotorua), as chairman of the committee, by way of personal explanation, denied that more than one recommendation had been carried on his casting vote. CONDUCT OF HOTELS. Mr. W. T. Jennings (Waitomo) said that for the past 18 months he had lived in hotels all over the North Island, and betterconducted places he could not wish for. He therefore deprecated the wholesale condemnation of people'engaged in the trade. He explained the origin of the prohibition of the sale of liquor in the Rohe Potae, and said there were now some 60,000 white people in the King Country, and all those people asked was the same right as that enjoyed by other white people, to say whether or not licenses should be granted in the King Country. Mr. R. A. Wright (Wellington Suburbs) said the country was morally bound to carry out the agreement made with the Maori chiefs, that liquor should not be sold in the Rohe Potae. |t might be a hardship to white people living there, but those people went to that district knowing what the conditions were, and they must be prepared to take the consequences. He had no doubt that if a poll was taken in the King Country, license would be carried, with results most disastrous to the Maoris, and that recommendation should be struck out of the report. Mr. V. H. Reed (Bay of Islands) said the committee had dismally failed to bring down recommendations which would improve the present state of affairs in. connection with the trade. All sorts of people had been examined by the committee, but the public had been left out, though the public was most keenly interested in the class of accommodation supplied by hotels. Why were magistrates, who are chairmen of licensing committees, not called? These gentlemen could have given much useful information. Many of the recommendations were mere twaddle compared with what the public were looking for and which they had a right to look for, namely, decent accommodation. The committee had quite failed in their duty to the public. Prohibitionists did not want to reform the trade, because the present condition of the trade was the best electioneering agent they had. NO CHANGE THIS YEAR. The Hon. E. P. Lee said that if the committee had failed to do justice to the public, then the blame must lie at the door of the majority of the committee, who were not prohibitionists. If the committee had failed, they at least had done their best to succeed. Mr. Lee said that if prohibition were carried at the next election the prohibition would be absolute, and fpr people to say that more liquor would be consumed under those circumstances was to his mind an utterly unreasonable suggestion. At the last licensing poll there were 61,290 people who voted either for prohibition or State control. These people, therefore, indicated they were against the present system, and that was surely indication enough to the trade and to the Government.

He did not favor an amendment of the law this year, because they were within a few months of another poll, which would be an opportunity of obtaining the latest opinion of the country. At the same time he regretted the inclusion of the issue of State control, because he preferred a straight-out vote for liquor or no liquor. Behind the increase in the license-fee there was an objective, and that was that there should be systematic inspection of hotels, and that this inspection would be carried out> at the expense of licensees and not at the expense of the public. Other proposals of the committee were reviewed with approval, but there were a number af which he did not approve, and against which he voted. The people whom the trade had to fear were not the prohibitionists, but a great mass of the people who were not satisfied with the present system, because the trade would not put its own house in order. Mr. L. M. Isitt (Christchurch North) said thi© re-port could not be taken seriously, but it had raised a crop of alleged reformers, who wanted to put the house of trade in order. It was significant that this report had been brought down at this juncture. It was on the eve of a licensing poll and it was intended to delude the public into a belief that some slight improvement might be made in the trade, but so soon as the poll was over there would be no more talk of reform. The protestations of these reformers might well be regarded with grave suspicion. The committee said there was no need of more licenses, ibut “dud" licenses in derelict ware to be transferred to other

centres, where they might realise their prospective value and so put thousand© of pounds into the pockets of the trade. So far a© the agreement made with the Maori chiefs wa© concerned he could not ‘believe the white people would do anything so diehonorable as to permit licenses in the Rohe Potae. It was not an argument to say liquor wa© now going into the King Country. The Government had been weak in permitting liquor to be carried there on the railway and it was wrong to ©ay that one wrong act was justification for a greater wrong. He protested against the proposal for extending license for four year© beyond the carrying of prohibition and ridiculed the licensing of barmen, which was done ©imply to screen the publicans. He had moved to re-license barmaids and to limitingxthe number of bars, but the reformers on the committee had not ©aid a single word against the moral evils of the traffic. The debate was continued by several other members, after which a motion “that the report do lie on the table and be printed” was agreed to.