LOCAL CONTROL IN NEW ZEALAND.
In no British colony is the temperance sentiment stronger, or is there more likelihood of the agitation for prohibition being brought to a successful issue, than in New Zealand. Its statesmen have shown during the last few years great political venturesomeness; the parliamentary suffrage has been given to women; social, it may be said socialistic, legislation of a most pronounced character has been encouraged, and the dreams of English Radicals have turned to blossom and fruit under the Southern Cross. The danger at present seems to be, not that the changes will be too slow, but that politicians, eager to anticipate the public wishes, may adopt and carry advanced legislation for which the colony is not prepared. This danger has been greatly increased since the passing of female suffrage. Whatever merits women may have as politicians, moderation is not one of them; and in the last election they plainly showed that they intend to select for power the men of most outspoken views and extreme policy.
New Zealand is a country of to-day, and knows but little of the social difficulties that are taxing all the energies of politicians in lands with a longer history. The rougher and poorer emigrants have mostly chosen the other Australian colonies in preference to it, and it is peopled to-day by a picked body of prosperous Englishmen and Scotchmen. As regards the consumption of liquor, it takes almost the lowest place among those lands that fly the Union Jack. The average expenditure per head comes to only a little over three pounds a year, and the amount of proof spirits consumed per head in the same time is a little over two gallons, or only about half of the quantity drunk in England. The prohibitionist party is very strong in the colony, and is led by Sir Robert Stout, the Liberal ex-Premier. The prohibitionists do not attempt just now to secure a measure forbidding the sale of liquor throughout the colony, for they regard that as at present impracticable. Their demands for the time are local option of prohibition by a simple majority, and no compensation. This latter point they have secured; and the question of pecuniary compensation to dispossessed publicans is no longer within the range of practical politics in New Zealand. In 1892 a Licensed Victuallers’ Compensation Bill was brought before the House of Representatives; but it aroused such general opposition that its proposers did not venture to ask for a division on it.
The tendency of legislation has been for some years steadily in the direction of giving increased direct power of control to the people. For some time the supervision of the drink trade was left in the hands of the various Provincial Councils, but in 1873 Sir William Fox, then Premier, carried a measure through Parliament which granted to two-thirds of the adult residents in any neighbourhood the right of preventing the issue of new licences there, on notifying their desire in that respect by signing a petition. Eight years later, a new Act repealed this veto law, and provided a more complicated machinery for dealing with the question. According to this, a Licensing Board was chosen annually by the electors in each district, and once in every three years the ratepayers voted on the question whether any licences should be issued in their neighbourhood. If they decided in the negative, the Board had to abide by their decision; but should they wish for an increase, the matter was then brought before the Board, though this body was by no means obliged to grant new licences, even when the popular vote had given it power to do so.
In many ways this Act proved a practicable, workable measure. The Inland Revenue returns showed each year, from the passing of the Act up to 1889, a steady diminution in the consumption of drink, amounting altogether in the seven years to twenty-five per cent.; and though this reduction has not been quite maintained during subsequent years, the trade is still considerably less than it formerly was. The Act stopped the increase of public-houses, though very few of the old hotels were deprived of their licences under it. Out of 1500 licensed houses in the colony, only twenty-five were closed under the Act during the first seven years. Since that time the advanced temperance party showed considerably more activity in this direction, and succeeded in obtaining a withdrawal of most of the licences in more than one district. But a doubtful legal point cropped up, as to how far Local Boards have the power to take away old licences, that prevented very much being done. In a certain licensing district the temperance party aroused itself and succeeded in electing a Board pledged to close the hotels. The Board kept its promise, and thereupon the liquor-sellers brought a case before the courts, on the grounds that the members of the Board had publicly pledged themselves as to their line of action before election, and therefore they were biassed and did not deal with the licences in a judicial manner. The court upheld the publicans and declared that the deprival of the licences was illegal. This decision, of course, practically took from the electors the greater part of their local control. Another point in which the system proved unsatisfactory was in the supervision of licensed houses. There seems to be a general opinion among moderate men that the Boards were not nearly strict enough in bringing offending licence-holders to book.
The Act of 1883 was not sufficiently drastic to satisfy the temperance party; and last year Mr. Seddon, the Liberal Premier, brought before the Legislature and carried a liquor law which he said would meet with the approval of all parties. The measure is called “An Act to give the people greater control over the granting and refusing of licences”. The licensing authority is still left in the hands of locally elected bodies: though no member of any such body can be disqualified from sitting or acting because he has at any time expressed his views or given any pledge as to the liquor traffic. The whole of the colony is now divided into sixty districts, and each of these has its own Board, consisting of the resident magistrate, and eight other residents in the district. Any elector living in a district shall be qualified to become a candidate for election to the Board there, unless he is a paid colonial or local official, or is directly or indirectly pecuniarily interested in the liquor traffic. When, once in three years, the licensing committee is elected, each voter has submitted to him at the same time three alternatives: and he must scratch out two of these, thus voting for the one he leaves untouched, or his paper will be void. The three choices are:—
(1) I vote that the number of publicans’ licences continue as at present.
(2) I vote that the number of publicans’ licences be reduced.
(3) I vote that no publicans’ licences be granted.
No vote for a committee-man will be counted unless the elector also chooses one of these things at the same time as he votes for the members of the committee.