§ MR. SHIRESS WILL (Montrose, &c.)I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if his attention has been directed to the fact that a keeper of a public house, called the Black Horse Inn, in Montrose, having applied for an extension of his licence to an upper flat of the same building previously unlicensed and entirely separated from the inn, the Licensing Authorities omitted to give any public notice of the application by advertisement, and further that, on the meeting of the Court in April last, although no one appeared in support of, or to ask for, such licence, the Magistrates granted the same; whether, in all such cases of application for extension of licence to portions of the same building not previously licensed, public notice by advertisement is necessary under the statute; whether it was lawful for the Magistrates to grant the application in the absence of the applicant or any one representing him; and whether, in the circumstances, there is any remedy or redress open to persons who were desirous of opposing the extension of the licence to the upper flat, and who, but for the absence of public notice of the application, would have opposed the same?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,) ButeI have no information at present, and must ask the hon. Member to give a longer notice of the question.