The Westport Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1872.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 997, 20 August 1872, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1872.

The varied mutations, curtailments and emendations of the Permissive Bill, in its passage through the House, will result in its emerging from the ordeal in such a guiso that its most ardent advocates will scarce recognise their erstwhile vigorous bantling. The Permissive clauses having been rejected, it certainly will not prove the • desperately radical measure contemplated by its originators, and it is not unlikely that it may prove but another addition to the lengthy list of impracticable enactments now cumbering the book of New Zealand statutes. It may, on the other hand, prove a mixed blessing, a source of public good in some respects, a very "evil act" in others. In any case it is doubtful whether the most mature legislation and careful weighing of the merits and

demerits of varying interests, can possibly result in rendering the bill of any real utility in promoting the cause of temperance, tending to public convenience, or conserving the good morals and orderly customs of society. It seems au almost helpless task to attempt to convince a certain class of highly moral, but intensely selfopinionated, political enthusiasts, that it is impossible to make her Majesty's lieges, in this or any other portion of her dominions, eit her sober or religious ;by Act of Parliament. It may be permitted them to argue that the liquor traffie is a moral nuisance, and like many physical nuisances, affecting injuriously the health or convenience of communities, should be put down by the strong arm of the law ; but in reducing their theory to practice, it docs not follow that they should be permitted to curtail tho privilege, dearly held and maintained by all Britons, of perfect freedom of action in their social and domestic relations. And to this degree the bill, in its original form, ccrt-iinly exUnded, however much the lint was hidden amid a mnss of gene-r;til<-ations aud self-evident truums, ref< rring to the excess of crime and poverty, entailing heavy burdens on the taxpayers, ariring from the abuse of drinking customs and drink traffic. Summed up briefly tho claim made by the ttdvecates of the Permissive Bill was that the people should have the power .—desputic power in fact—to veto or

restrain the trading transaction of one particular class of traders, who, already subject t> stringent restrictions aucl legalised espial, carry on the necessary and legitimate business of Licensed Victuallers. The claim being made ostensibly on the plea that nothing more was asked for on behalf of the people, than is now granted to a bench of Licensing Magistrates. In reality the demand was made, that the power now entrusted to an impartial tribunal should be handed over to a capricious, non-responsible authority, liable to corrupt influence, by reason of petty contentions, trade rivalry, and even party or sectnrian differences of opinion. As the Licensing Ordinances of the various provinces now stand, the restrictions placed upon liquor traffic, the stipulations as to public accommodation to be provided, and the restraints upon the supply of intoxicating liquors to habitual drunkards, prove, under ordinarily careful police supervision, sufficiently stringent to eusure that the public interest is well cared for; and the advocates of the Permissive Bill have not ventured to assert that the police service has proved inefficient in exercising a wholesome restraint on licensed houses, however much defection may appear in the suppression of unlicensed shanties, or drink-shops. And herein seems to be the weakest point of their argument. They do not forbid the introduction of liquor into the colony, nor its local manufacture, neither would they permit a free trade in liquor, but they seek to place further restraints, upon a trade now already subject to coercive legislation, and, at the same time, are persistently blind to the fact that they would thereby create a thousandfold stronger inducement for illicit traffic in liquor than now exists. For in actual practice, the working of the proposed measure would amount to this, the licensed victualler, who, investing a large amount of money in his business, caters for the comfort and convenience of the public, paying for the privilege of following his vocation heavy annual contributions to the public revenues, but enjoying in return a certain degree of legal protection, would, under the new enactment have found that protection dependent solely on the caprice of his not always friendly neighbors, and that, to propitiate popular favor, he would have to submit, directly or indirectly, to a system of black mail, for permission to actually get a fair return for capital legitimately invested. Hotel-keepers would have been mere bond slaves to the community wherein they resided,and, as a natural sequence, good sterling men, worthy host 3 in every sense of the word, would have quickly withdrawn from a business so beset with harrassing contingencies, and the liquor trade would merge into the hands of a class of huckstering tapsters, individuals of either sex, who, if by any chance debarred from selling liquor by license, would as readily carry on an unlicensed trade therein, with ail its concomitant evil surroundings. The Permissive clauses being withdrawn, the advocates of the measure still hope, little by little, session by session, to place stronger restraint upon the licensing system; and if, as they seek to prove, the majority of the New Zealand public are anxious therefor, no serious objection can be raised to experimental legislation therein; but the country should not be committed irrevocably to the acceptance of a law which, as now proposed, must press unfairly on important vested interests, and seems of doubtful utility in so many other respects. A Permissive or Licensing Bill, in any shape or guise, should contain some protective clauses guarding the licensed victuallers interest, however stringent may be the restraints and penalties to be inflicted on illicit traders.