Wararapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1892

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4288, 7 December 1892, Page 2

Wararapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1892

Beino iue extended title of this Wairakapa Daily, with whiou it is IDENTICAL

| A zealous but indiscreet constable endeavoured the other day to prevent a license being transferred for a Lower Valley Hotel, Now, this is a thing that a constable, as a man of the world who looks forward to promotion in his sphero of usefulness, should specially avoid becauseLicensingCommitteea, as now constituted, invariably resent official interference of this nature and possibly the only sufferer by an attempt to oppose the issue of a license is the official himself, who vainly imagines that ho has a case because he can produce evidence to show that a house is misconducted, ond does not discover till the proceedings are over, that evidence to a Licensing Committee somewhat resembles watortoa duck's baok—it simply runs off,

In thepresentinstance the constable objected to the transfer of a license beoause the applicant was unfit, because the house was badly conducted and because when he visited it in his official capacity, ho was' insulted, He also alleged that he had arrested a man who had been drinking in ttio house for three, days and was suffering from delirium tremens. He called witnesses to confirm his own statements,.

On the face of such a oliargn nnpported by evidence could a Licensing Committee hesitate a moment in refusing a transfer. It could not, for there is a well known formula which meets, all charges of this kind, and from which no Licensing Committee is known to vary, It real); amounts to this, the applicant is told that he must be more careful, or else at some future annual sitting he will lose his license. The constable, after being harried and worried by the legal adviser of the applioant, is probably laughed at and chaffed by all who have witnessed his heroic but utterly fiitilc effort to perform a public duty, ' Can people wonder, when scenes of this kind are continually reported, that moderate men condemn in into the present management of hotels by elected Licensing Committees, arid if no improved methods can be devised, favor prohibition, If they have to choose between the two extremes of unbridled licenso and prohibition, between an open and ■ unchallenged evasion of all (he safeguards provided by law for the decent conduct of the liquor trade and its etitire suppression, they are justified~in the intoreats of publiomorality ja siding with the only party which ip capable of controlling it.

The other day the Government organ played a Jubilee wallz to weloome to tbeee shores a number of new arrivals from Australia. These strangers, it sang, were not indigent loafers come to batten 011 our bureau, but Bturdy, independent men who knew how to help themselves and had money in their pockets. One of them, it will be seen by a telegram in our l«Bt issue, has already helped himself by appropriating somebody else's portmanteau, and six months' detention within the Colony is absolutely assured to him. The Government organ will no doubt be proud to know that one of the new arrivals is already provided for, and the Government will no doubt send a further supply of that useful and attractive little handbook to Sydney, which depicts this Colony as a Paradise for working men, and holds out a prospect of unlimited employment and high wngi'B to all comers. How proud the Government orgau must be to recognise the virtue of self help displayed by the Australian who has already been provided for. We need not fear an invading army of this kind; is there not room for all 1 Mr Garvey will accommodate somennd the bureau others, and provided all vote straight at the next general election, there cannot bo too many of them I