NEWTOWN LICENSES.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 937, 9 July 1903, Page 3

NEWTOWN LICENSES.

By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, last night. Applications for mandamus Newtown Licensing Committee were heard by the full Bench of the Supreme Court to-day. Judge Williams alone was absent. All the applications were taken together. Mr Skerrett and Mr Levi, and Messrs Morrison and Young are retained for the applicants, and Messrs Atkinson and'Adams (Dunedin) for the Licensing Committee. Mr Skerrett prefaced his address by stating that the application practically resolved itself into a request for a mandamus to compel the Committee to grant renewals. He proceeded to detail the facts, whioh are well known, and said

the only ground for refusal was the Committee’s contention that they had no jurisdiction because the poll had been upset. He argued that if the Committee were right, whenever a poll was set aside in a new district, whatever tho result of that poll might have boon, the effect would be prohibition irremediably. This v would apply to every new district ot every district whoso boundaries were altered. » He

contended that Section 3 was exhausted .■eajjoou a s the poll was taken ; that it merely required a poll to be held; that the section is satisfied if a determination is arrived at by the voters, even if afterwards upset; that the seotion must be aubjeot to sections implied by other provisions of the statute, suoh as default of the returning officer. Later.—Mr Skerrett, continuing his

argument in the Nowtown licensing case, subufltted that it was section 4 of the Act of 1895, and not section 3, that referred to the licensing poll to be taken. Under this poll it was not valid unless half the electors vote, and according to the Committee in such a cuse prohibition must ensue. After an elaborate examination of the various Licensing Aots, counsel contended that it was clear that a license has a statutory right to a renewal, subject only to certain objections in the Act of 1881 and to a .valid prohibition poll; that licenses can only be refused as the result of an adverse vbte of the eleotors ; that prohibition must be carried by a three-fifths majority of votes recorded; that the only licenses voided are those granted in opposition to the determination arrived at by a valid poll 5 that there is not machinery for making prohibition effective in each case as at present; that Committees must be olect6d, but yet would have no jurisdiction in cases like this if the contention of the Newtown Committee were right; that licenses cannot be recreated, and that all provisions for reliof of tenaats or landlords depend upon the roault of a poll, and therefore the construction set up by the othor side contradicted the whole scheme of the Act, and led to the greatest absurdity and injustice. Section 3 was only intended to have temporary operations, and apply to districts existing when it came into operation, but not to those afterwards formed or altered. Section 4of the Act of 1895 covered the whole matter, and the presumed'existing state of things where fhere had been no poll, or no valid poll. & Skerrett further argued from the Electoral and other Acts that the results of committee’s contention must be that under certain circumstances no licenses could be granted for two years throughout the colony, although no poll had been taken. Section 3 merely required a poll to bo held. Some of the questions mentioned in it could not bo submitted at ail, as where it was merely a question of restoration of licenses or an increase in consequence of an increase in population, there had been a dotormination and a pol was not a nullity, though afterwords set aside. The result must bo the same as When no proposal was carried. Mr Skerrett’s address was not conoludod when the Court rose.