NO COMPENSATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1868, 15 June 1888, Page 3

NO COMPENSATION.

That portion of the local Government BiU, now before the English Parliament, which deals with public house licenses, ; has evoked each hos ilo criticism and proI teßts. that a report ga : nod currency that the Ministry bad been compelled to with draw the obnoxious o'auses. The Rev Hugh Price Hughes, M. A , who has carried on a vigorous crusode against tho proposal that compensation should be paid out of County rates, delivered an address on the cufjcfit at WardoHr Hall, Lo^.don, on tho af ernoon of Sunday, Bih April, He j asked, " Are the publicans optitled, either ( legally or morally, to any financial cora- | pensaiion ?" Afttr giving an emphatic i negative to the former pirt of the question, which has been already well threshed out m these columns, Mr Hughes said, " What conceivable claim to compensation has a publican m eqaity ?" His license is a most valuable monopoly, which thousands would like to share, but it is refused to them. 1 know a man who, when he got his license for a mere song,* said : " Thia I'cense hem put £1200 m my pocket," and, after giving him that Bum, will you " compensate " him by giving , him another out of tho pockets of the straggling ratepayers? That these men have no claim to compensation may farther be ehovrn by the fact that it would be perfect'y lawful for the Legislature, if it thought fit, to enact Freetrade m liquor, to let everybody sell it. What becomes of your compensation then 1 To compensate the holder of a lucrative monopoly is unheard nf. But it may bo eaid : "It is very hard to deprive a man of his living after he has invested all his capital m the business. Will yon starve his wife and children V Wei', m the first place, the publican, like anybody else, mast ran trade risks and take the consequences of speculation. Many men put their money m various enterprises and lose it. It cai scarcely be said that the publican has had no warning, For forly years an ever-growing party has declared war against the liquor trade. The license holder can read on his license that it is granted "for one whole year and no longer," "Why should the publican alone of all men bo protected against risks to which all tradesmen are exposed, and which he has chosea to ignore m the teeth of the decision of judge 3, the statements of Home Secretaries, the pamplets of Temperance reformers, the confessiois of his own trade journals, and the very terms of his own license ? Far her, aa a matter of fact, there are very few cases of this kind. Thejqreat majority of Hoinfiedhoaeea are '• tied " houses. They belong to enormously wealthy brewers, who have already made fortunes, as Dr Johnston Biid, " beyond tbe dreama of avarice," out of the folly aad m'aery of mankind. They pat poot wretches into these houses of theirs, and unlees they Buocoed la Belling a certain quantity of their liquors, they evict them without mercy. What claim have the brewers and distillers to compensation 1 They have already gained incalculable wealth oat of tbetr unhappy fellowoonntrymen, Let them be aatlefisd. A friend of mine wrote to me last week, urging the Temperance party to aooept the compensation clauses on the ground that " most of the money " will come oat of the pockets of the license-holders. There never was a greater mistake. The almost that the new licence duty woald give lv any one year Is £300,000, bat the lowest 1 calculations put the compensation at £! 80,000,000. 'If my friends Bla'ement were correct, we oould nit object to the millionaires m the liquor trade compensating tbetr lees proaperoas fellowtradermen. Indeed, Mr James, an ab!e member of the executive of the Liceased Victuallers' National Defeuce Association has suggested that half the licensed houses should be closed, and the owners of those houses should be compensated by tha other half oui of the Inc-eased pK-Bio which thelf g: eater monopoly would give them. He estimates the compensation at £70,000,000, Now there pin be no ob. jection whatever to that reasonable and equitable proposal. Let Bass, Allsopp, Guinness, and all their company pay £70,000,000 to their disinherited brethren. But when the ratepaye;s are wanted by the Government to pay the compensation money, I claim to be heard oa tho other side. If we ore to talk about compensation there are counter claims which must be pressed. When the license is granted it depreciates the valua r £ all the adjoining property. The owners of .that properly have a greater c'aim for compensation from the public m than he has from the public. Again, at }tast half our poor and police rates are the direct results of the liquor traffic Let the pufelioans compensate the ratepayers for thos9 rates before they look for any compensation from the ratepayers. Our children on the other side of the Atlantic have much more rational and equitable conceptions of compensation m relation to the liquor trade than we h,ave. In panada the wife, guardian of the children, or employer of an inebriate can notify the publican not $o furnish hjm with intoxicants, and if the publican or any person m his service dose so within twelve months, the wife or others concerned can recover compensation to the amount of £100 from tb« publican. Another Act says that if a publican furnishes drink to an intoxicated person, and suoh person commits euicide, perishes from cold, or dies from accident occasioned by each intoxication, the relatives of the deceased person may obtain compensation from the publican to the cmount of £200. Another eection of that edmirabie Act says that if an intoxicated person assaults anybody or injures any property, tho iDJared party can not only prosecute the intoxicated person, but also recover damages from the party who famished the llqaor. In several of the United States the publican whose customer Is imprisoned for drunkenneßß is required to pay dally to tbe support of tyo, imprisoned viotlm',B wife until her hatband ia released. These are tbe kinds of oorupeneatlon for which ample prcvaton should be m&d* before ire hear one word of compensation for the privileged and wealthy liquor 'monopolist, i The «• Times " of November BQ, 187Q, summed up tbe Issue In a sentenoe which It ongbt to repeat now : ie . To put the case In half-a-do^an words : the profita In which the llquor-eellera now claim a vested Interest are r.ealleed tq a vast extent at the coat of popular degradation, vice, and mlserj j and tbe question is simply whether the Legislature of » oountiy Is not justified iv placing, with due consider atloo, the welfare of tho people above the gains of a trade." Sorely Christian citizens can give only one answer to that question. Some of the proposals of the Government iv relation to the I'quor trade we mast probably accept. Bat the proposal of the compensation is a proposal to establish the liquor trade m England as It has never been established before, and to endow It oat<sf the pockets of the ratepayers with endowments far In excess even of the gigantic endowment! of the Established Churob . It is a proposal so unprecedented, so unjast, and so disastrous, that every good man ohoald offer it £s most determined and lrreconolleable opposition. '