Alarm At Rising Tide Of Liquor

From, correspondents in Port Moresby and Suva

The authorities in the two biggest Island territories in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, are concerned over the rising tide of drunkenness.

The death of a police inspector at the hands of a drunken youth has sparked off a police drive against drunks in Fiji. The PNG Govern ment plans to appoint a committee to probe the drinking laws and some drastic tightening up of those laws can be expected.

With the rising tide of drunkenness and an increase in crime, much of which can be attributed to drink, has come a rising tide of criticism of the existing laws which have not been reviewed since 1961.

In that year, the administration ap pointed a commission to examine the drink laws which placed a total prohibition on natives drinking. The result was a bill approved in October, 1962, which lifted the ban and made drink, including spirits, a free-for-all.

Mayhem was predicted.

Now, the laws are under attack, particularly the section which controls supply. The critics complain that there are not enough controls and

that, under the law, almost any kind of store can sell liquor.

PNG church leaders and politicians have complained that the laws are too liberal and that drinking is breaking up family life. Senior police officers and people connected with the courts blame excessive drinking for the crime rate which has risen steadily since prohibition was abolished.

The Administrator, Mr. L. W.

Johnson, announced on July 15 that the commission of inquiry’s terms of reference would be to investigate all aspects of the sale and consumption of liquor in the Territory, with parti cular reference to the effect on living conditions of persons, especially indi genous persons, living in areas where liquor is freely available; to investi gate the extent to which the consump tion of liquor has changed social be haviour patterns, including the inci dence of crime in urban areas; and to make recommendations on what changes are needed to existing licens ing laws. The commission will report to the Administrator. Members of the commission have yet to be named.

Fiji, particularly in Suva, Lautoka and other population centres has been

plagued by drunks for years, in fact from 1958 when the permit system was scrapped and Fiji and Indian males were given the right to drink beer, although hard liquor remained on permit. Then, on New Year’s Day, 1963, the last restriction, so far as males were concerned, was removed.

Spirits became available, but such had been the outcry against allowing Island and Indian women to drink that this discriminatory legislation banning drink for women was retained. This ban was swept away in January, 1969.

Drunkenness among men has steadily increased and fights between drunks have become a familiar sight on the streets especially on Friday nights, Saturdays and holidays.

Christmas time drinking usually brings a crop of 50 to 60 drunks in the courts on the first working day after the festival.

The incidence of drunkenness has also kept pace with wage rises and today there is a marked increase in the number of drunks seen reeling about the streets.

It was brought to a head early in July when a police inspector, Jone

Bainivalu, 38, a sector leader at the Central Police Station in Suva, was assaulted by a drunk at the Suva Market taxi stand.

His assailant, a 23-year-old unemployed villager, was gaoled for nine months for assault and later, when the inspector died, the man was charged with his murder. r™ r . . , The police reaction—accompamed by cries for a clean-up from the public was an all-out drive against drunks which, on the first weekend since the inspector’s death, yielded °Y e r 60 arrests for offences connected rV 11 Fm f S /° r offenders Ti io the Suva court on July 12. The following weekend 79 were arrested.

Calling for “some hard and constructive thinking about a problem which is growing worse every day”, the Fi/V ed^t ° r^ Q a e bars m some Suva hotels and non-metropohUn ones ? s , ar ® Jt “Stu p . lg ’ sties la be er is swilhsd customers are P es t ered ’ punches are thrown and prostitutes offer their wares.”

The editorial ended with, “The courts will have to impose harsh penalties where these are justified if the police campaign is to be carried to a logical conclusion. And some hoteliers could make their contribution by P ullin g up their socks and running establishments where it is safe for ordinary citizens to have a

beer in peace—without being pestered by drunken louts or finding them selves in the middle of a brawl.”

This problem of drunkenness has een discussed in Fiji on many oc casions by many organisations but, so far, no one has come up with a so i ut i on> j fj indeed, there is a solu *:on Some have talked about reducing drinking hours and even of pro hibition but, with memories of the New York and Chicago beer barons in mind, and the futility of pro hibition laws in other countries, including some of the states of India, an attack on the individual’s liberty to drink would only bring greater evils by driving drink underground.