COMMENT ON REPORT OF LICENSING COMMISSION

White Ribbon, Volume 18, Issue 10, 1 November 1946, Page 7

COMMENT ON REPORT OF LICENSING COMMISSION

The Rev. R. B. Spence, M.A., minister of Knox Church and President of the New Zealand Alliance. Datinevirke branch, in response to a request made the following statement to the Evening News on the recent report of the Royal Commission on Licensing:— ‘The evidence before the Royal Commission brought to light a wealth of information, some of it most startling, which would otherwise never ha e seen the light. In this respect at least the commission has made a contribution to our knowledge. If the liquor traffic is to remain, a redistribution of licences is inevitable. It is recommended ‘that information be made available both in the schools

and to adults on the latest scientific findings on the effects of alcohol and the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors.’ This scientific knowledge is already being taught in some public schools by permission of Education Boards, but it is so emphatically against the consumption of alcoholic liquors in any form that it is quite obvious members of the commission themselves ha\e not read what they urge upon others. Such scientific findings make the commission’s recommendations to extend drinking facilities in evenings, in restaurants, cabarets, and private parties groundless and irrational. “The report falls down badly also in its neglect to recognise the moral life

of the country and the deleterious effect that extended drinking faiilities will have. If the experiment in Invercargill is any criterion, the drinking shops opened there are teaching young people to take spirituous liquors at an alarming rate. And what will night traffic do. ‘Righteousness alone cxalteth a nation.’ In 1939 New Zealand -•pent £9,000,000 on liquor, in 1945, £13,000,000. Does anyone imagine that extended drinking facilities will uplift the nation, or reduce the toll that liquor takes of human life? The scientific findings of medical men, ministers and social workers are in flat contradiction to the report on this issue. “The commission speaks of safeguards because of ‘the definite view o f the majority that intoxicating liquor is a commodity with dangerous possibilities and therefore, in the public inti rest, requiring safeguards not ordinarily necessary.’ Those suggested are a strict watch on the character of licensees and heavy penalties for breaches of the law. The existing legislation provides adequate penalties. More legislation will mean nothing, unless the police, the law courts, and Licensing Committees are prepared to enforce it. “In regard to the King Country I am prepared to take Sir Robert Stout’s word before that of Mr. Justice Smith. Sir Robert declares ‘that there was a bargain made between the Maoris and the Government that this district was to he kept free from the sale of spirituous liquors. . . . We got on that territory on this condition —no alcoholic liquor was to be sold in that district.’ Any Government, therefore, that re-introduces liquor to the King Country lias no h >nour and deserves the worftt that comes to i*. “Regarding State control and ownership, the Labour Party will make the Invercargill experiment their first and last if they are w’ise, or their liquor policy will smash them.”