THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1906 LICENSED VICTUALLING REFORM

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1906, Page 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1906 LICENSED VICTUALLING REFORM

*&W * ' •vfijrrnp*^ HE Local Option polls are over. In the few M (IHj weeks that have elapsed since then the £?/ i'l Jlt> licensed victuallers have had ample time to 4<J**^yit survey the situation and cast up and bal\3ha3ir* ance accoun^ s with their friends of the Prost j^sT"!^ hibition party. For a variety of causes — i gj^ r which have already been sufficiently indicated in our editorial columns — there has been a check in the hitherto triumphal march of No-license, as 'regards its immediate object and anticipated results. But, taken all round, the movement shows a gain in the numerical strength of the votes that it has polled. There are two significant and warning lessons in the recent polls that ' the trade ' will— unless they wish to live in a fool's paradise— take to heart in a practical way. The first is this : that the Moderates— who, at the Local Option polls, hold the balance of power — look, not indeed with full satisfaction, but with approval and hope, upon the improved tone of the driink traffic during the past three years. Their verdict at the polls was that of fair-minded neutrals who said : So far, good. But you can— and ought— to do better. See that you do so.' The other lesson is one of more emphatic warning. However they may differ on the vexed question of a' remedy, a vast and grojwing bopy of the electors of New Zealand are not .convinced that the licensed victualling business is, as a business, even yet conducted in a manner that should merit their approval. The saner— and, we hope, the major part— o! those engaged in the trade, admit and deplore its shortcomings. As matters stand, it makes the judicious of every color to grieve. In all the circumstances, it is therefore high time that those engaged in the avocation of licensed victuallers should take prompt and efficacious steps to set their house in order.

We, for our part, are strong advocates of temperancq reform. But for various reasons we do not hold with the spocific principles that serve as guide-rails to the Prohibition party. (1) The Catholic Church, for instance, while she teaches that intemperance is a heinous and soul-wrecking sin, nowhere asserts or suggests that the manufacture, sale, or moderate use of alcoholic drinks is of itself a violation of the moral law. (2) In the second place, whether in this or in other matters, our logic is not so bankrupt as to algue firom abuse against legitimate use. Moreover, (3) we do not share the Prohibition party's hard and* fast refusal to recognise the principle of compensation. (4) We ate not satisfied that . No-license, as it exists either in this country or in the United States, is a real remedy for the admitted evils that have grown up around the drink traffic. And (5) we believe in the possibility, and even in the practicability, of so regulating and reforming the

-business and its surroundings, that it may -become as free from n just reproach as any other,-and as unobjec-

tionable, from the temperance point of view, as it has long and generally been in Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain. For the rest, if, apart from these considerations, many of our faith view the Prohibition movement with suspicion and distrust, it is -because these 'feelings have , been" burned /into their souls by the virulence and ,• persistency With which many of its leaders have for years attacked and outraged the most cherished relfgious sentiments of Catholics in every part of New Zealand.

- But, despite the- improved' conditions that have generally prevailed during the past three years, the traffic in alcoholic . drinks has a long and arduous road to travel before it satisfies the reasonable aspirations of the friends of temperance. The trade is one that is peculiarly liable to abuses. For this very reason it should be (entrusted only to men that are spedially fitted to carry it on. It should, moreover, be placed under specially stringent control, and be hedged around with every reasonable safeguard. Under both these aspects— that of selection and of control— there still remains much scope for reform in New Zealand. There are, no doubt, many in the business who merit the encomium bestowed some time ago by an earnest Prohibitionist on a strict and greatly respected hotel-keeper of Dunedin whose soul had just flitted— we hope to the Better Land : 'If all publicans were like him, there would be no Prohibition.' The lesson is not new. It received a fresh illustration at the recent Local Option polls. But there seems, on the part of many licensed victuallers, a disposition to keep it out of sight and out of mind. We once more remind all concerned that the real leaders and organisers of Prohibition are not those who are nominally at the head of the crusade against the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks. No, the real plumed generals of the movement are the scallywags of ' the trade '—the wretched dollar-grubbers who bend every energy to create a demand for liquor, even beyond what sobriety should dictate, and to squeeze the utmost! coin at the speediest rate out of cask and bottle, regardless alike of the law of God and of the proper restrictions with which, in the public interest, the Civil Power has surrounded the occupation of the licensed victualler. The motto of this sordid fringe of the licensed business is that set forth by Pope :—: — 1 Get place and wealth ; if possible, with grace ; If not, by any means get wealth and place.' The Fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore laid down the follow/ing elementary -rules for" the guidance of publicans :—

' They should sell no drink to minors, or to persons Who are likely to take it to excess. They should close their saloons on Sundays. At no time should they allow within thdir saloons blasphemy, cursing, or obscene language. If, by their fault or co-operation, religion is dishonored,., or men led- to ruin, they must know ' that there is in heaven an Avenger, Who will surely exact from them most severe penalties.' But the scallywag is, so far as he dares— and he dares much— a law unto himself. He recognises— when he safely; can— no law that conflicts with his shekelraking principles. Appeals to his conscience are frequently as futile as dosing the dead with pink .pills. Such men are pests of society. They are "a constant menace to the public weal. And the first step towards public-house reform is to eliminate them permanenjtly from the business of licensed victualling. The Prohibition movement owes its rise and growth and gathering influence to the grave and ' acknowledged abuses of the scallywag — abuses which, however, we believe to be no-, more inherent to the traffic in alcoholic drink than to the trade- in jack-knives or diamond-grain spbrting-pow--der. But it is high time that the antecedents and personal character &nd fitness of applicants should be made

the -subjept of closer scrutiny by the. police, licensing committees, and the Association which represents -_• the trade ' in New Zealand. *

We have more than once expressed our conviction that the licensed victualling trade in New Zealand is placed between the two alternatives of substantial reform or -gradual abolition. And from time to time we have pointed out that any real reform must come from within— although it may be powerfully aided by legislative enactments, which, like Father O'Flynn, may serve a good purpose by ' lifting the lazy ones on wid the stick.'

We understand that a conference of the licensed victuallers of the southern provinces will be held shortly with a view to effecting sundry improvements and reforms in ' the trade.' If— as we hope— they will set about their work in a serious, practical, and thoroughgoing manner, they will probably lay the foundations of a genuine reform that may in due course search every licensing district in New Zealand. We commend to them, the following suggestions :«—

1. Steps to be taken to rid the business of the scallywag— by moral suasion and altered conduct, if possible ; otherwise by more emphatic means, such as formal opposition to Ms license by the L.V. Association, aiding in prosecutions, etc.

2. An organised and systematic effort should be made to aid in enforcing the provisions of the law, especially in regard to (a) trading on Sundays and after hours ; (b) gambling ; and (c) the supplying of strong driinks to minors and intoxicated and prohibited persons. No infraction of the moral law should be tolerated, and not one tittle of the provisions of the civil law should be inoperative or ineffective.

3. Fresh legislation should be proposed on some such lines as the following : (a) In the interests of the home life of both publicans and their clients, ten o'clock' closing to be made compulsory throughout New Zealand, (b) To raise to twenty-one years the age at which young persons may be supplied with liquor, (c) Imprisonment without the option of a fine to the person who actually) supplies alcoholic liquor to anyone who is under the influence of drink, (d) Endorsements of license to be compulsory and non-cancellable for Sunday trading, and supplying liquor to minors and intoxicated and prohibited persons, (c) Three such endorsements to constitute a perpetual disqualification for holding a license, (f) Provisicn to be made for the more effectual ' prohibition ' and safeguarding, not alone of the habitual toper, but likewise of the usually more stormy and tempestuous- drunkard who indulges in occasional or periodical bouts of intemperance, (g) The abolition of private bars, (h) Effective and perpetual abolition (and not mere paper abolition) of tied houses, (i) Cessation— say on January 1, 1909— 0f the employment of young women behind the bars of hotels.

We should be sorry to see the methods of the American saloon ever acclimatised in New Zealand. But 'in one respect, at least, it offers an example deserving of imitation : female bar-tenders are Unknown under :the Stars and Stripes. From personal knowledge we are prepared to vouch that the employment of young women in bars is the cause of a very serious amount of the opposition manifested towards -the licensed victuallers' trade in New Zealand. For everything that tends towards increasing the demand for spirituous drinks be-

yond the needs of reasonable . refreshment, is bad both in morals! and in policy. Now the ground of opposition arising from the barmaid is one which the respectable licensed victualler has, alike with the rapscallion y in the trade, long been supplying ,to the Prohibitionist party. This objection is -intensified By the fact that in, perhaps, the majority of cases personal attractiveness is a chief— if not the chief— factor in determining the employment of an applicant for. a position behind the bar.

The fact that -great numbers of' these young women are in mind and heart and manners irreproachable, is no justification for exposing them to the unwholesome atmosphere of a public bar. It only goes to show -that many persons—those of the gentler sex included—rise through the grace of God and early training, superior to their occupations and surioundings. The elimination of the barmaid, after a fixed and reasonable period, would work no injustice in a country where the field of employment for young women is so wide and varied ; and it would remove one grave and well-grounded objection to the traffic in strong drinks. The abolition of one of the real and ingrained curses of the country— the treating habit — is a further consummation devoutly to be desired. It would round off a scheme of drinkreform which every lover of temperance would rejoice to see.